How are Brest outperforming Man City, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich in the Champions League?! French minnows are flying despite lack of European experience

Roy didn't look like the potential protagonist of one of the most remarkable underdog success stories in football history. The former Nice boss had been a good player in his day (he represented both Lyon and Marseille at his peak, and also spent a season at Sunderland), but when he took over at Brest in January 2023, he'd been out of the coaching game for more than a decade.

Roy had spent the majority of the preceding 12 years working as a sporting director (first at Lens, then at Watford), but was probably best known to younger audiences as a TV pundit on French football coverage.

It certainly looked like he'd been away from the dugout for a while during his first couple of months in charge, with Brest winning just one of their first eight league games under Roy - a rotten run of form that saw them fall into the relegation zone.

However, the ex-midfielder belatedly sparked a remarkable recovery. Brest lost just three games from March onwards and went from 18th in the table to the relatively heady heights of 14th by the end of the 2022-23 season.

Despite the strong finish to the preceding campaign, little was expected of Brest going into the following season, as most pundits predicted another battle to beat the drop. After all, Brest's budget was just €40 million (£33m/$42m) - the fourth-smallest in France's top flight.

However, by the time they arrived at Parc des Princes in January of this year and drew 2-2 with perennial champions Paris Saint-Germain, it was clear that something special was happening. Brest were third in the table and there was already giddy talk of qualifying for the Champions League.

Roy was keen to point out that his side had already lost their surprise factor, meaning it was only going to get more difficult to sustain their remarkable results. "The hardest part of the season for us is starting now," he warned. "We're no longer being underestimated."

Brest president Denis Le Saint - who runs a food distribution company with his brother that was founded by their parents - was even more dismissive of the idea that a top-four finish was a realistic target. It was unthinkable as far as he was concerned.

Brest had been declared bankrupt after being demoted from Ligue 1 in 1991 and ended up languishing in France's amateur divisions for a decade before slowly dragging their way back up the professional ranks. When Le Saint took over in 2016, though, the Bretons were still in Ligue 2 and success, as far as he was concerned, was stability.

Ever since securing a return to Ligue 1 in 2019, the sole objective has been retaining their top-flight status while constructing a new stadium. So, when he was asked towards the tail end of last season if the Champions League was the new target, he scoffed, "Are you kidding or what?! We have to be serious, our past alone reminds us of that. Just keep going. Then, finishing in the top 10 will be the goal."

However, despite suffering back-to-back defeats in the middle of April, to Lyon and Monaco, Brest ensured a top-four finish with a 1-1 draw at home to Reims in their penultimate Ligue 1 fixture.

Roy was inevitably asked afterwards which European heavyweight he'd like to play in the Champions League and admitted, "I haven't really thought about the potential opponents, but it feels surreal just talking about it!"

He also pointed out that they'd only done enough to ensure a place in the qualifying rounds. Automatic qualification would only be achieved if they managed to overtake Lille on the last day of the season - and that looked unlikely, especially when Benjamin Andre put Paulo Fonseca's then-side 2-1 up in the closing stags of their final game, against Nice.

However, Jordan Lotomba's 93rd-minute equaliser saw Brest finish third thanks to a comfortable 3-0 win in Toulouse. A team that had never even played in European competition before had just qualified for the Champions League proper.

"If a scriptwriter writes something like that, people call him crazy and tell him it can't possibly exist," Roy enthused. "But football is often like love: it has its reasons that reason ignores, and that's what we've experienced throughout this season, which has defied all the odds. We've done it! It's quite incredible!"

Brest's performances in this season's Champions League are almost as astounding - particularly as the squad was arguably weakened over the summer rather than strengthened. A financially prudent approach to player recruitment has been one of the key elements to Le Saint's presidency, with the emphasis very much on bargain buys, be they undervalued veterans with something still to offer or young players of real potential hiding in the lower leagues. Nonetheless, it was saddening to see a club that had just qualified for the Champions League lose a number of players that had played significant parts in the feat, including Lilian Brassier, Steve Mounie and Jeremy Le Douaron.

Furthermore, only €10 million (£8m/$11m) was spent on transfer fees for new players, with Brest still having to rely on the loan market and free agency to boost their numbers, while they have also been forced to play their European home games at Guingamp's Stade de Roudourou, which is more than 100 kilometres away, because the Stade Francis-Le Ble doesn't meet UEFA regulations.

Despite all of their disadvantages, Brest somehow find themselves fourth in the Champions League standings going into matchday five, having won three games so far (against Sturm Graz, Red Bull Salzburg and Sparta Prague), and drawn their other, against Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen.

Humility and hard work have been key, with Roy rightly proud of the fact that there are no egos in his dressing room. "Everyone fights for one another," he said. "We have a strong collective identity - which is the hardest thing to create [at a club]."

It also makes them a problem to play against. While the players demonstrate impressive discipline and organisation within Roy's 4-3-3 formation, veteran midfielder Jonas Martin acknowledges that they're "a bunch of madmen".

"We are all a little crazy on the pitch... because we are competitors, we hate defeat," he told L'Equipe. "We have [successfully] managed to combine work, intensity and character, plus the talent of some, and there is a good chemistry between the young players and the older guys. The coach often says that we are pirates - and we show it on the field."

There are tougher tests to come in the second half of the league phase, starting with Barca away on Tuesday, and finishing with Real Madrid at 'home' on January 29. However, Brest have already entered free-hit territory, as 10 points means they're 99 per cent sure of a place in the play-off round.

So, could the tournament debutants actually progress directly to the last 16 by finishing in the top eight, given they'd require just six more points to do so based on Opta's calculations? While there's obviously a chance they might not get anything out of their games against the top two teams in La Liga, Brest's brand of misfits certainly won't be in the least bit intimidated by the upcoming clashes with PSV and Shakhtar Donetsk.

Unfortunately, their chances haven't been helped by the most untimely loss of influential midfielder Pierre Lees-Melou, who was forced off during last Friday's loss at Monaco and joins highly-rated left-back Bradley Locko on the sidelines. Roy admitted that the injury to Lees-Melou, coupled with the result, made it a "nightmare evening" at the Stade Louis II for Brest - but the resumption of play in the Champions League means they can once again dare to dream.

It's obviously hard to make a strong case for actually backing the Bretons to beat Barca in their own backyard. As Martin admitted on the eve of the game, it's "extraordinary" just for them to be there, going up against some of the "best players in Europe". However, it's telling that he warned their hosts that they not travelling to Catalunya "just to make up the numbers". "We want to win," Martin said, "and we must continue to honour our jersey - and not be seen as clowns."

There's no chance of that, regardless of the result. Brest have been the revelation of this season's Champions League and, as Roy has previously pointed out, nothing much about the club's story arc so far makes any sense at all, so who knows what might happen next?

A relegation-threatened team from Ligue 1 is presently looking down on Barcelona in the Champions League table, and the only certainty is that France's version of Wimbledon's 'Crazy Gang' are going to enjoy the absurdity of the situation for as long as it lasts.

"We're set to face a small team!" Roy quipped ahead of Tuesday's historic clash in Catalunya. "We'll try not to have a superiority complex!"