Sunderland head coach Régis Le Bris delivered several wide-ranging interviews to Italian outlets over the weekend
The Black Cats boss also answered questions on a range of topics, including what it would be like to manage against some of the top-flight’s best managers. Here, we take a look at everything Le Bris said during the interviews:
Sunderland are resurrecting
"Sunderland is a giant of English football that has fallen and is now resurrecting," Le Bris reflected when asked about promotion to the Premier League. "The thing that impressed me most about the series is the attachment to the team by the fans. These are people who live for Sunderland: they have an incredible passion for this club."
How supporters welcomed Le Bris to Wearside
Le Bris described how he was taken aback by the passion on Wearside from the moment he arrived: "The first time I met them was in front of the official club shop, when the new shirt came out. There was a 100-meter queue, with people waiting there since the morning to buy the shirt. They didn't know me, I was almost a stranger."
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"The fans welcomed me super well, from day one. During the pre-season camp in Spain, 2,500 of them came to watch a friendly. Incredible. For the play-off final at Wembley, 35,000 of our tickets were snapped up while Sheffield's didn't manage to sell them all."
Sunderland have beaten the odds
Le Bris pointed to the data, which painted Sunderland as long shots at the start of the 2023-24 campaign: "Opta gave us less than a 5% chance of finishing in the top 6 and a 25% chance of being relegated back to League One. We managed to overturn the predictions with the work on the pitch and with the strength of an extraordinary group, which used the common energy to obtain great results."
Building a team for the Premier League
"We are talking about the NBA of football, but it is an exciting challenge and we like challenges," Le Bris said when asked about the difficulties of the Premier League. "I am not scared, I remain convinced that it must be a collective effort: we want to build a strong team, a strong staff, a strong structure. Maintaining our values, I think, is what will allow us to be successful."
Le Bris; moment at Wembley with Sunderland fans
Recalling the full-time scenes at Wembley, Le Bris said: "There were 35,000 Sunderland fans celebrating and going wild. It was magical. At the end of the game, the journalists were looking for me for interviews. I stopped them. I said: 'Just give me two minutes. Let me spend a moment with these fans.' Incredible. It took a while to realise it, but yes: we are in the Premier League."
Facing the likes of Slot and Guardiola
Asked about facing the likes of Arne Slot and Pep Guardiola, Le Bris said: "The way I am, I don’t worry too much about the future or the consequences: I always take it one day at a time, trying to understand how I can improve the team at this precise moment. I think about one minute at a time, and it will be the same when we have to face Liverpool."
"What were the chances of Sunderland being promoted to the Premier League? It is clear that we will have to overturn some predictions, but we will try with our identity and our community."
Le Bris’ first meeting at Sunderland
"At the first meeting, I asked the lads what, in their opinion, had brought them to be there, at that moment, at the pre-season camp. Everyone responded by talking about the common desire to go to the Premier League," he said. "These are words that you hear often, but in this case the words were combined with facts, sacrifice, the desire to really get there, all together."
"There was an incredible alchemy right from the start. There were important players from whom I asked a sacrifice, to whom I sometimes said that they would not start: no one ever complained, everyone put themselves at the service of the team."
Le Bris on Sunderland’s focus on youth
"I worked with a group of young guys: our team had the lowest average age of the whole Championship, and yet we managed to work hard, in an incredibly mature way, being supportive and above all arriving fresh at the end of the season. It is no coincidence that in the play-off semi-final against Coventry we scored the decisive goal in the final minutes, and it is no coincidence that we won the final at Wembley in the 95th minute."
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