Almeida: “Together with the good and the bad – We will correct our mistakes like last year”

The AEK coach sent a message of unity and reconstruction after the 1-1 draw with Panserraikos in New Philadelphia. Matias Almeida.

The Argentinian coach spoke about his team’s many missed opportunities, attributing them to the stress and pressure his players feel in order to score, while stressing that the mistakes are normal for the given period, stressing that they should be corrected immediately.

Finally, Matias Almeida spoke about Wednesday’s upcoming rematch with Antwerp, stressing that there should be no pressure.

His statements in detail:

For AEK’s many finals in the match, even if it is the most worrying of the match: “If we think about it, we’ve been close to 40 times in the opposition goal and we have a lot of anxiety and… worry. We want to score goals… before we shoot. I know it can be fixed. We have to work on it more. I find it positive that you create phases, but this changes it many times and does not have the desired effect is the ability of the opponent or lack of concentration on our part. We even lost a penalty tonight. The opponent started and had a phase at 10 seconds. And in the next phase he scores a goal! Then we tried to make our own game. We were 0-1 and the opponent defended well. Then we created many and clear phases. That’s football, you don’t score goals”.

If he is concerned that in all four official matches this year, AEK has conceded the first goal: “I will repeat what I said recently: in every mistake we pay for it. In this way, one or two opportunities are created which the opponents take advantage of. Apart from the amazing foul we conceded in Zagreb, everything else came from our own mistakes. I always see them. We will always try to create. But if you convert the opportunities you create yourself, the result will be different.”

If there is more pressure ahead of Wednesday, the many missed opportunities: “I see it in a different way. We will have to find a way to train differently. Pressure blocks the world. This is what I have learned in my life. We should try not to block our players when they go to finish a phase. It’s a… this period. And I believe it will stop. We are thinking positively. We will find the mistakes we make and try to seal the positives the team does. The team with the way they play created many chances. If the reversal had taken place I would not be able to stay in it. I should be left with the operation of the team and the positives and negatives.”

For the first minute of the match which was the worst first minute. If there is an issue with the approach and if the defense has an embarrassment when the opponent plays vertical football:

“I would agree about the first minute. It is not usual for the team to start like this, especially at home. In the second topic we study the opponents. We discussed today’s goal before the match. As soon as the goal was scored, we had discussed it and said that it could damage us. There is also the ability of the opponent. I will divide it into three parts: first I had explained it. The opponent made double diagonals. The second is to block the crosses. And the third step we informed about the movements that “14” makes in the opponent’s area. It was three errors in the defensive function. Of course, there is also the ability of the opponent.

I will not be part of such a world. I’m talking to you all in every way. I appreciate and evaluate when an opponent “unlocks” us. I value our mistakes. When I was a fan of a team, I was in both the good and the bad. In good times I supported her and in bad even more. This is the spirit I try to bring to my players until the last day I coach. When things don’t go well, everyone looks for someone to blame. We are all together in good times and bad. We will insist on working and correcting our mistakes as we did last year.”