Here is Lucien Favre's reaction after the first pre-season friendly between the Gym and Cercle Bruges (1-1).

Coach, did you enjoy the game?

Yes, it was a good start, very intense. You can see that they had a bit of a head start in their preparation, they had already played against PSV Eindhoven and AS Monaco. They were very aggressive, close to the limit, I must say. Now it's like that, there are many teams who confuse pressing with proper recovery. It's up to us to overcome that. We also have to press, train, play one touch, two touches, use both feet, have guys dribbling... But on the whole, it was not bad… We know that we played too low in the first half, because we couldn't press up the pitch, except for a little bit at the start. They had too much time on the ball, the No.10 was too alone, with their 4-2-3-1, it was too easy, we were not good at retrieving the ball. When that's the case, you suffer. It was OK and the second half was OK. It's unusual to play on Saturday morning at 10am. We gave it our all this week. We only had one training session, but sometimes it lasted two hours, with the heat. And then it was our first game.

We saw a beautiful goal...

Wonderful. Rosario, Thuram, Gouiri, Thuram and Delort. Thuram and Gouiri? They get on well, with Delort too. It was a beautiful move and a beautiful goal.

What did you think of your three-man midfield?

We can grow. It's the first time we've played this, it takes some getting used to. You need to have a pretty good command of the ball. We play out from the back a lot. When it's like that, you have to be good with an opponent at your back, you have to be able to turn, get to the ball at your feet, play in one touch. There's a lot of work to do, we saw that. But it wasn't bad. We played higher in the second half, we had more crosses. Calvin Stengs? He has a lot of work to do. He's still young. We did two weeks, one on the small pitch. He'll get used to it.

Is the idea to find our feet in the 4-3-3?

We mustn't get stuck on one system. In any case, in the end, it will depend on the players we have and will have, because other players will come in and we will have to adapt. It's not easy to find the right player for this or that system.

Do you hope to go on the training camp with other players?

We'll see. I remember the first year, when I arrived, we went to a training camp and we were missing some players, who arrived afterwards. They weren't there to start. That's typical of the transfer period.

Were there any youngsters you particularly liked?

Mendy wasn't bad, even if he picked up some knocks, he took a blow to the nose, another to the adductor, then made a mistake. Daouda Traoré, who is not yet 16, is not bad. But they need time, we'll work on it because there are certain things that have to be done. When you are 16, 18, you need a bit of experience. We'll see. Reda Belahyane played, Badrerine Bouanani too.

Will you be going to the camp with a larger group?

We'll go with 22 or 23 players, no more, otherwise it's complicated. If there are a few injuries, as was the case after the match, even if I don't know how long they will last, we have to. We have several games and we would like to play 11 against 11 internally to see the players in their positions and see how they react in the system. Claude-Maurice? He's good. That's what you need to have. He did well. I like it when he gets on the ball.

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