Dabrauskas: “There is nervousness, there are doubts”

Valdas Dabrauskas spoke about OFI’s many lost phases in his statements ahead of the match against Panathinaikos at Leoforos. The coach of the Cretan team admitted that there is nervousness among his players for this point of the game.

In detail what the OFI coach said before the game against Panathinaikos:

“It’s the balance of the two. In the last five games doubt entered. We tried to distance ourselves from the different opinions, social media and focus on the grass. In the big games we won, we achieved it with a certain style, we were stable, we had good balance. In the last games, where the results affected us, we lost that balance a little bit, we tried to put the weight on the attack. But it’s not about quality in attack. We put it in our heads that ‘we have to score’ and sometimes, when you want it so much, those moments slip away. Tell me another game where three goals were disallowed? You miss some shots, some chances. But this can happen. In the games we played against Ari, PAOK, AEK, we were very effective. We had the chance, we finished the chance. We had another chance, we finished the other chance. Now that wasn’t the issue, because in other matches we had chances, but we didn’t score many goals. In all other games, we take the lead and do not score a second goal.

It is not only the defense, because there is also the opponent who will have his chances. There won’t be a match where the opponent won’t have his chances. But you have to score. You saw in Ari’s game against Panathinaikos, in similar situations, Ari’s player blocked the ball and the ball came in front of him, to score in an empty net. And we in the last minute, Neira blocks the goalkeeper’s volley and the ball goes to a point that he cannot reach. Mosquera shoots and the ball hits the post and goes wide. What we need is to support the players who are on the pitch and have the freedom to play. Because at the end of the day, you do your job, the fans have their opinion, the coaches do their job, but the ball will go in, but not from our contact. It will go through the players’ contacts. And if we put that pressure on them and pollute their minds with toxicity, then that’s what happens. That’s why it’s our coaching duty to clear their minds, give them confidence and believe in them.”

For nervousness:

“There is nervousness, there are doubts. That it’s not meant to happen, whatever. Of course it is. Because how can you explain that we go to training, we score. We take a penalty, we score. We commit a foul, we score. And we go into the game and chances are lost. They are good players. But when you go to this difficult period, even the good players ‘freeze’ sometimes. For that, we have to find a way to free them.” It’s always easier to play when you have spaces. Sometimes you’re playing against 10 players and they’re all in the area and it’s harder to find spaces. For example, last year we played twice with 10 players and did not lose a single game. We played for almost 90 minutes against Panathinaikos with 10 players and did not lose. Can you say that Panathinaikos is not a good team? It’s hard to play against a tight defense. In my opinion, we created enough against Volos, but we can only blame ourselves and the coach, because we didn’t find the way. Now we have a different scenario. We have to be brave, we have to be confident and go and do what we couldn’t do on our pitch.

I believe so, there are some criteria. The players are struggling, it’s obvious. When we scored the goal in 89? with Meiados against Volos, we were the best team, the best players, everything is good. In 90?, when the referee and VAR disallowed the goal, we were the worst. It’s not like that. The players execute the plan, we as coaches see how they execute the plan, the locker room is united and they fight hard in training. When these pieces are together in every match, we have a good chance. We had a difficult month in October and then we thought it would be an easier month, but we didn’t get it. So we’re going game by game and we’ll see what happens.”.