Sfeiropoulos: We fought well against Olympiakos – There must be a unified calendar, the players are overworked

Red Star was bent by him Olympic in SEF, with Yiannis Sfeiropoulos appearing satisfied with his team’s effort, even though the desired result did not come.

“I think today we put up a good fight against a good team, especially at home. We controlled the tempo in the first half and apart from the last 3-4 minutes of the first half, our defense was very good. At half time we talked to our players, we said we have to keep playing the same defense but play faster in attack.

I think we didn’t have that many good options offensively. We kept the ball in our hands longer than we should have, we missed some open shots and so that basically decided the game. Despite Olympiakos’ lead, we didn’t give up, we tried to come back. That satisfies me. We fought for the victory. We have to learn from this game, see what we did wrong, improve it and show better next time».

Asked about player fatigue, he said:Of course the players are tired, when they play so many games but we have to understand that this is the calendar, we can’t talk about fatigue anymore, when you have matches day after day, you have to be ready. We see that the situation with the players and the injuries are caused by excessive fatigue.

We need to think about this and make a single calendar, I have said this many times. Whoever has a bigger-stronger roster and luck to avoid injuries is in a better position. For example, in the previous match we saw the two playmakers get injured (s.s. Napier, Dos Santos). Sometimes you have to be lucky. A season is judged by many things. It’s a marathon to be held at a high level».

On the comparison of the world of Olympiakos and Red Star: “Now for the crowd, the crowd in Serbia is very dynamic, they support the team and fill the stadium. I still can’t compare, it’s too early».