Almeida: “My players gave their souls, I don’t really know why the goal was disallowed”

At the press conference of the match against PAOK, the Matias Almeida.

The coach of AEK praised his players, while emphasizing that they gave their souls to leave the Toumba stadium with victory.

In addition, he clarified that he has not understood the reason why AEK’s goal was cancelled.

Finally, the Argentinian coach also spoke about his choices in the starting line-up, especially his own Giorgos Tzavellas.

In detail what Matias Almeida said at the press conference:

On whether the big win in Tuba was a title message: “I think that until today it was that we are looking for the victories and we always go for them. We’ve won a lot of games, we’ve had some losses, but throughout the league we’ve kept a similar style of play. A feeling that the players belong to this team and feel part of it. Today we beat a difficult opponent and rose to the occasion. The players really gave their soul as we asked them to and the most important thing I saw is that we work as a team”.

For the two midfielders in the XI: “I think the majority of the players that played in that game. We analyzed the opponent well, there were some changes due to some injuries we had, but that’s why I made it clear before that we played as a team. More important than the result is the unity of the team and the desire to do important things”.

About Jonson’s change and Pineda’s move to the midfielders: “The team wants to show that they play aggressively. I felt like we lacked a little more intensity in our game. We were in a hurry enough to make some passes and some were intercepted by the opponent, but the main reason was that Jonsson was not feeling well. We came here to chase the three points and many times the message that can come out can be that he wants to win the game with the change, or wait a few minutes to wait and see what happens if a change is not made. We took the risk of staying with Szymanski and Pineda in the center and with Sergio behind Garcia. I think it turned out pretty well.”.

On Amrabad’s disallowed goal and whether the referee said anything to him: “I really don’t know why the goal was disallowed. Perhaps you know better than I do. The referee and I don’t speak the same language, so there was no way to communicate.”.

For Tzavella’s selection in the starting 11: “We are always called to make some decisions. Every risk I take, it goes to say that I have worked on it before in training. The players are ready for this competition between us and Tzavellas helped us today and performed well. That’s why I always tell my players to be ready because you never know when you might need it. I’m happy for Javella. At his age when I was a footballer I thought about a lot of things and I know what it’s like, that’s what I’m called to manage. The only way the footballers have to satisfy me is whenever the team needs them, is to be ready and trained”