Razvan Lucescu stressed that the PAOK players must have seriousness and humility in the second match against Hearts in order to qualify for the Europa Conference League groups, and he believes that they correctly faced the power that the Scots brought out, he asked that they have more possession, gave the signal for the rematch in Tuba, expects proper behavior from the fans and compared the atmosphere in Jerusalem, Split to that of Edinburgh.
Analytically: “But the game was exactly what we expected. We responded well to everything to an almost perfect degree, we responded well and left the field with an important win, but we have to be focused on the second leg. We must have humility, the same spirit, the same competitiveness in Thessaloniki for this victory to be important. In the three qualifying rounds we faced three completely different teams.
Hearts have that style of big balls and taking second chances from those big phases. The game came down to physicality and strength, but we were good and controlled for the longest part of the match, we showed a good response. If there’s something I’m not satisfied with, it’s because we didn’t keep the ball as much as we would have liked.”
The fact that some players knew there were no alternatives was to blame for the lack of possession: “The reaction and presence of the team was almost perfect. It’s not that I’m not satisfied, I just wish we had a little more possession. Simply, I would have been much more satisfied if we had kept the ball a bit longer. We should be ready to react to everything and take what the opponent gives us.
I’m always worried about the next game, about how the players will be mentally, I’m worried because in football you have to be right in everything and have a huge percentage of concentration. I expect our world in the second game to give us that important energy. What concerns me now is the next match. I am not concerned or troubled by the behavior of our fans, as much as we are looking forward to it and expect them to give us athletic aggression and extra motivation to go further.”
On whether there is a chance that his players will be seduced by the atmosphere of Toumba: “I don’t think something like that can happen. We still haven’t achieved anything, we’ll go into the second leg with just a small lead after the win in Scotland.”
On the atmosphere in the team and the fighting spirit he showed: “The game required us to go strong. We had to respond to these kinds of battles and we knew it. He went to the second balls and we controlled most of the situations in and around our area. The match in Jerusalem was completely different because we had a player less than 40′ in Split, we were playing against a team with a different quality of football and in a full house.
In Edinburgh it was something completely different. You probably didn’t expect it, but we knew we had to be careful. If we had more possession of the ball, we might have had more chances to score more. All these are elements that have helped our team”.
On the power play and the card Shankland went: “It was a power play, I don’t know what to say about the cards. These were the referee’s decisions, maybe we would have had a different picture of the phase”.
Source: Sport Fm
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