Terim: “We know the expectations of our fans – I trust my players, they will give everything to qualify”

Panathinaikos’ coach, Fatih Terim, spoke to the Cosmote TV camera about tonight’s great rematch against Olympiakos at “Georgios Karaiskakis”.

The experienced Turkish coach, with his statements, emphasized that the goal of his team is clear and is none other than qualification, he referred to the many absences, underlining that he trusts all his players, referring to the ways in which he solves competitive problems, while he answered whether the team will be able to play with high intensity in a third consecutive derby.

Fatih Terim’s statements on Cosmote TV in detail

For the rematch with Olympiakos: “First of all I would like to say that I have all the information about my team. And I approach them all with some ideas in mind. And derbies are derbies. From now on there will be many derbies. Our way is clear. We know the expectations of Panathinaikos fans.

The things I want from my players and we will proceed in this way. There is an ambition to beat all our opponents, all the games and we should all live with that goal. And everyone knows what that goal is. They have to play like this, live like this, think like this and in spite of all circumstances live for this goal. For example, in the previous game against AEK, we should have won the match 2-1. Without looking at the conditions, we should have won.”

For the many absences that exist:“As you pointed out, we have some absentees, some injured like Fotis (s.s. Ioannidis) who was added to the players who are out. But I don’t think like that, that we have some absentees, because in football they play eleven against eleven. I trust all my team, I trust all my players and usually I don’t think about these things so much, injuries. So I care who will play tomorrow (including today) on the field and those who play in the starting eleven, they will do everything for themselves, for the club, for us, they will give everything.

On the other hand, as a coach there are two ways to deal with this. I can do that by making some changes or sometimes inside the pitch you can find some different roles for the players. As I did with Kotsira for example, changing his role somewhat. That’s how you can solve these kinds of problems, so for Panathinaikos, our club, for the fans, all my players will do their best and those who play tomorrow (including today) will do everything for us. Magnuson, Eric (s.s. Palmer – Brown), Djurisic, Cherin, Palasios, Alex (s.s. Geremegev), lastly Fotis (s.s. Ioannidis). There are a lot of absences, but we have to do everything to cover them.”

On whether the team will be able to play with high intensity in a third derby in a row: “As you know all three of these games are very important for us, so naturally in these kind of matches, you need to find the balance in a fair way within the team. When you have so many injuries, so many players missing, it’s not easy to do. You have to think, be smart and find the solutions in a creative way. But on the other hand, we are talking about a rematch, in which overtime may occur.

We have our strategy, we have our plans, but at the same time thinking about our plans, we don’t want to give up the game philosophy that we have. The mentality of our game. Our first goal will of course be to “finish” the game at 90′. We want to qualify for the next round in regular time. But if that doesn’t happen and extra time is needed to achieve the goal and continue in the Cup. We have to show our mentality and philosophy.”.