Bourigeaud: 'The armband is a mark of confidence' | OneFootball

At the age of 29, Benjamin Bourigeaud is embarking on his seventh season at Stade Rennais - but his first as captain. In the campaign ahead, the longest-serving player in the Rennes squad will once again be a key figure for the Bretons in Ligue 1 Uber Eats.

In 2017, a 23-year-old Ch'ti arrived at a mid-table Breton club. Now, six years on, Benjamin Bourigeaud has become part of the history books at Stade Rennais, where he is now a regular fixture in Europe, and he told AFP that he "still wants to do more" at an ambitious club.

Captain material

The last remaining Rennes player form the Coupe de France win in the spring of 2019, the Calais-born, RC Lens-trained midfielder has become a symbol of the Breton club through his commitment, and this summer he inherited the captain's armband from Hamari Traoré (who arrived at the club on the same day as Bourigeuad), who has left for Real Sociedad.

"When I arrived, Romain Danzé was the captain. A club legend. So wearing the armband is a responsibility, a mark of confidence and always a source of pride," explained Bourigeaud.

It is indeed a big responsibility, given the club's lofty goals. Since 2020, Stade Rennais have said they are aiming for a European place every season. But this summer, the official watchword has gone up a notch: the podium and the Champions League.

"There's no pressure," says Bourigeaud, despite SRFC's having narrowly missed out on the Europa League for the last two years. "The objectives are clear and it's always good to keep aiming higher."

Next level

Hearing the Champions League anthem ring out at Roazhon Park in the autumn of 2020 was one of the highlights of his career, but he is still frustrated by the fact that the stadium was almost empty due to health restrictions. +

"We want to return to the competition, this time with our supporters," he explained.

And to do that, the club has once again given itself the means, recruiting two talented neighbours in the form of Enzo Le Fée (ex-Lorient) and Ludovic Blas (ex-Nantes).

"When I arrived, it wasn't really the same club," recalled Bourigeaud, who has had four coaches in Brittany (Christian Gourcuff, Sabri Lamouchi, Julien Stéphan and Bruno Genesio).

Involved in 80 Rennes goals

For him, the Coupe de France in 2019 was the turning point, soothing the "deep wounds" of previous finals losses and launching the club to the top. There was also the emergence of some exceptional players, such as Benjamin André, captain for 2019, "an underrated player who has enormous defensive quality and great timing", as well as the complicated Hatem Ben Arfa - "I'd rarely seen a player so at ease with the ball" - and above all the rocket Eduardo Camavinga, pride of the Rennes youth academy.

"But I think there are some young guns coming through," he warned. "Désiré Doué has already shown a lot of his qualities and there's a lot of pressure at the back too, with some youngsters coming through who have a lot of the ball."

Growing responsibility

With the Rouge et Noir, Benjamin Bourigeaud has been directly involved in 80 goals in Ligue 1 Uber Eats, racking up 42 goals and 38 assists in 208 games played. The midfielder was captain for the four warm-up matches in which he took part, and is the team's dead-ball specialist. On top of free-kicks and corners, he is also the penalty taker (scoring against Wolverhampton), as he was for the invaluable penalty scored at Brest last June in R38 (1-2).

This season, the man who has become the club's most decisive player wants to "rack up the points so that we can't be caught", hoping to get the season off to a flying start for once, as he tends to start slowly and finish strongly.

Sunday's 17:05 kick-off at Roazhon Park against newly-promoted Metz could be just the thing to boost his Rennes tally.

(Photo: SRFC)