Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin, with AFP / Photo credit: KEN SUTTON / Colorsport / DPPI via AFP 21:58 p.m., May 22, 2023, modified at 22:04 p.m., May 22, 2023
After the new victory of Stade Rochelais against Leinster in the final of the Champions Cup, the president of the club Vincent Merling was the exceptional guest of "Europe 1 Sport". The entrepreneur and businessman congratulated his group of players and now hopes to achieve the double with the Top 14.La Rochelle achieved the feat this weekend to retain its title in the Champions Cup by offering Leinster (27-26), in Dublin, at the end of a huge final. The French club, crowned last year in Marseille against the same team, overcame a deficit of three tries scored by the Irish in the first twelve minutes of the match. Exceptional guest of the program Europe 1 Sport (every evening from 20 hours to 23 hours live on Europe 1), Vincent Merling, president of the club admitted to have "not yet had a minute to realize" the performance that Grégory Alldriit's teammates have managed to achieve.
To win a second star, La Rochelle had to show "character" and "determination", had reacted hot captain Gregory Alldritt after the final of the Champions Cup (27-26). "We were stunned by the start of the match. We had a game strategy based on possession but for 15 minutes we didn't see the ball. I thought more about winning but being up to the task at that moment. But when we came back to 10 points difference I believed. I saw Irish people gradually dying out in the stands," Vincent Merling said in the Europe 1 sports show.
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"An extraordinary audience"
A title shared with the more than 5,000 La Rochelle supporters who made the trip to Dublin, but also remotely with the tens of thousands gathered on the port of the city. Like a year ago, after the victory over Leinster in the Champions Cup final, tens of thousands of people gathered in the historic center of La Rochelle to celebrate this second consecutive European title for their rugby team.
"Since last year it's been going crescendo and it's incredible. We have an extraordinary audience. It was just sublime, "said the president of the club of La Rochelle. For the consultant of Europe 1 Sport, "in the recent history of French rugby, this match is in the top 3." An opinion shared by the journalist of Canal + Amaia Cazenave: "Mission impossible does not exist for the Rochelais", cheered the latter. La Rochelle is now aiming for the double champion of Europe - champion of France. "We prepare everything," said Vincent Merling, whose club has already qualified for the semi-finals of the Top 14.