Gregory Lorenzi & Stade Brest’s Budget Squad Building For UCL – Recruitment Analysis

Last season, Éric Roy achieved one of the most impressive feats in European football by guiding Stade Brest — a side with the fifth-lowest wage bill in the French Ligue 1 — to the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League by guiding Les Pirates to a third-place finish in France’s top-flight, trailing only PSG and Monaco, who had the highest and third-highest wage bills in the league, respectively.

This wasn’t just a major feather in the cap of manager Roy, but also for Sporting Director Gregory Lorenzi, who has been with the Brittany club in some capacity since 2016 — first in the role of ‘Sports Coordinator’ before becoming Sporting Director in 2018.

Lorenzi played a significant role in crafting the squad that Roy had to work with.

The squad ultimately proved strong enough for a top-three finish in one of Europe’s strongest leagues last term—a far from simple challenge considering the financial disparity between Brest and some of the big hitters in Ligue 1 they were battling for that final Champions League place, including Lille, Nice, and Lyon.

This led Lorenzi and Stade Brestois 29’s recruitment department into the 2024 summer when they were tasked with preparing the club to compete on all fronts in the following campaign, with European football to juggle along with their domestic competition.

Now, with the 2024 summer transfer window having slammed shut, this recruitment analysis piece in the form of data analysis will use statistics to assess how Brest handled their business in getting themselves all set for the Champions League.

Despite having achieved so much last season, Lorenzi shed some light on the difficulties he and his club faced in preparing for the 2024/25 campaign in late August, revealing to L’Équipe that Les Pirates struggled to attract the calibre of targets they were after due to the fact that having UCL football this upcoming season doesn’t allow them to then splash out on stars who they could afford for 2024/25, but perhaps not in subsequent seasons, effectively tying their hands and limiting the amount that they could bolster their forces for the challenge ahead this term.

“This year, we can maybe give €100,000, but next season, that wont be the case… Otherwise, at this rate, its not in three years, but in two years that well close our doors” — Lorenzi explained.

So, let’s get down to the details and data to analyse Lorenzi and Brest’s work in the 2024 summer transfer window.

Brest Transfer Window Overview

We’ll kick things off with a brief overview of Brest’s summer transfer activity.

Firstly, Brest had a couple of highly impactful loanees in their ranks last season: Martín Satriano (centre-forward) and Kamory Doumbia (attacking midfield).

Those weren’t the only loanees who were in the squad, with Billal Brahimi (right-wing), Jordan Amavi (left-back) and Julian Le Cardinal (centre-back) all playing important squad roles.

Even with these loanees, Éric Roy had a fairly small squad to work with last term, so at the start of the summer, 40-year-old Sporting Director Lorenzi clearly tried to bring some of the loanees who made up the successful squad of last term back to Brest for their Champions League adventure.

They were unable to bring Satriano back into the fold, and the Uruguayan striker ended up moving back on loan to Ligue 1, but with Lens, who paid a €1m loan fee to secure the Inter man’s services for 2024/25.

However, Doumbia — a player who made the absolute most of his minutes last season, primarily playing as an impact sub within Roy’s squad and accumulating just 889 league minutes over the course of the campaign yet still scoring six and assisting five — did come back to Brest, with Les Pirates parting with €4m to secure the Mali international’s services on a permanent deal.

Kamory Doumbia Radar Map

Doumbia made the most of his time on the pitch last season, contributing significantly for his team off the bench, and Brest will be he can maintain his level this term.

Similarly, squad players Amavi (free) and Le Cardinal (€1.7m) also returned to Stade Francis-Le Blé for good this past summer to bolster Roy’s options.

All in all, wi