Bernard: “Once another team was infected with Covid – No one was honest with Panathinaikos”

Sure that he and his Panathinaikos teammates contracted the coronavirus from another team, which he essentially “showed”, Bernmar Duarte appeared in an interview he gave to APE.

At the same time, the Brazilian ace of the “greens” expressed his disappointment over the fact that the specific issue – and by extension Panathinaikos – was not dealt with as it should be in relation to the upcoming derby with Olympiakos!

While, referring to his future, Bernard confirmed that this will be shared with the “clover” and spoke of a great mission…

What he said in detail:

-How do you feel about the season as a whole, as well as its finale?

“Of course there is disappointment with the final result. We led the points race all season and in the last two games we lost the top spot. I think first of all it’s important to learn from what happened this season because there are some things that shouldn’t happen to a team fighting for the championship. We lost our confidence and points in a stupid way at some points of the year. And we have to learn to be stronger in the bad times and in the difficult times to do much better next season.”

-How unfair do you feel what happened at the end of the year with the Covid-19 cases and the fact that Panathinaikos was forced to play a title derby with 17 cases?

“I don’t believe it was an issue that someone from our team brought from outside and passed it on to all of us. Most likely it came from another team. So it’s different. Because as a team you pay attention to everything around Covid all season, you test every day, you are healthy, everyone is healthy inside the club and you play a team with Covid-19 and after a week everyone in our team has coronavirus. We played against Olympiakos and almost all of our team had Covid-19. Yes, agreed, we’ve all been vaccinated, but it’s not the same as playing with Covid-19. Clearly your body is also fighting against the virus, but you spend energy to run, to fight, to score, but you have your limits. So it’s different… I don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining. I don’t want to be here saying ‘Covid is to blame’. We might not have lost the title from this game. But it all leaves you with a bad feeling, because they didn’t give us some time to get over it. If they were honest with us, they would give us some time to get over it. But they didn’t. It’s a shame… Because I’ve never seen this thing before, anywhere I’ve played. No one cares about something so serious. I can’t say anything else, we can’t do anything else… We have to learn from this process and do something even better next season.”

-It has been written several times recently about interest in you from Brazilian teams, specifically Atletico Mineiro. What are your thoughts on next season?

“I will be here. I have a contract. I love the place, Panathinaikos, its world that has embraced me since the first day I came. Everything is perfect for me. We will be playing in Europe and in the Champions League summer qualifiers, so I hope next season we can take the team to another, even higher level. This year, we improved and developed a lot, we showed the size and the name of this club but we can do much better next year. We have a big “mission” for the next season…”.