Panathinaikos UEL opponents preview: Stade Rennes

 Panathinaikos UEL opponents preview: Stade Rennes


By Nikolas Fil



Panathinaikos couldn’t find the back of the net against Israeli champions Maccabi Haifa, now they need to get something against Rennes in Leoforos to keep their 1st place dream alive. Today we are gonna preview the Greens’ clash against Les Rouge et Noirs, while we are also gonna talk about key players from Rennes’ squad, including their strengths and weaknesses.

Rennes sold Belgian talent Jeremy Doku to Manchester City, Nigerian-French defensive midfielder Ugochukwu to Chelsea and Croatian midfielder Lovro Majer to Wolfsburg for a combined fee of 112 million euros, while they made Loic Bade’s and Serhou Guirassy’s loan moves to Sevilla and Stuttgart respectively permanent receiving 21 million euros. As a result, they signed Le Fee from Lorient, Blas from Nantes and Yildrim from Hatayspor to replace them, but also signed Nemanja Matic from Roma for 2 million to add some experience to their youthful roster.

Manager: Bruno Genesio

Bruno Genesio is a French football manager and former player. He started his footballing career at Lyon making 171 appearances scoring 12 goals as a midfielder winning Ligue 2 in the 1988/89 season. One year after retiring in 1997, he started working as a youth coach in various teams in France. In 1999 he was appointed as Villefranche manager, 2 years later he was sacked following the club's relegation from CFA 2.

In 2015 he returned to Lyon this time as a manager staying there for 4 years between 2015 and 2019, helping Lyon finish 2nd in the 2015/16 season and reaching the UEL semi finals in the 2016/17 season. After a brief spell at Beijing Guoan, he was appointed as Rennes boss in 2021. In his first season there, he won Ligue 1 Manager of the season after helping Rennes finish 4th. Rennes’ owners rewarded his back-to-back 4th-place finishes by giving him a new deal until 2025.

Style of play:

Rennes' primary tactic is to play straight from the goalkeeper to the full-backs, with the full-backs then progressing the team straight into the opponent's half.

Star Player: Amine Gouiri

Amine Gouiri is an Algerian international footballer who plays as a striker/winger. Gouiri began his career at Lyon’s academy making 33 appearances scoring 14 times for Lyon’s B side. In November 2017, Gouiri made his professional debut for Lyon at the age of 17 in a 0-0 draw against Montpellier. In 2020 he made the switch to Nice staying there for 2 years making 75 appearances and scoring 22 times.

In the summer of 2022, he joined his former coach Genesio at Stade Rennes. In his first season, he scored 17 goals in 47 appearances in all comps. This season he has scored 2 goals in 10 appearances. Gouiri’s capability of playing in 2 positions makes him versatile on the pitch, making him difficult to defend against, Panathinaikos’ defenders must be very careful coming up against him on Thursday.

Hellas Football 
Follow @BVBNikolas

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