Almeida: “We recognize that we played a bad game and we are here to overturn it – The president’s visit is good”

No evasions, o Matias Almeida recognized that her image AEK in the first match against Noa, he was far from his “want” and pledged to fight with his players to overturn Armenia’s 3-1 defeat. The Argentinian coach referred to the injury of Levia Garcia, revealing that he has examined at least 30 strikers, while he also spoke about the mistakes of Thomas Strakosa. Finally, he judged positively the visit of Marios Iliopoulos to Spata after the defeat in the first match against Noa.

“After every game in the two years I’ve been here I talk about my team’s strengths and mistakes. Obviously, we analyzed the first match. There were individual, collective and decisive mistakes. Surely the one who makes the first mistake is the coach who selects the players. We are always looking to find the mistake, we are working on it but football doesn’t guarantee you anything. You have to make decisions in milliseconds. You can plan things, train, but some things change quickly. The first match leaves me with a huge reality, that we didn’t play with our own identity, we weren’t accurate, we didn’t create situations for goals, we weren’t the attacking team we are. We got a goal from stoppage time but all we saw was bad stuff. We did our self-criticism, it’s the beginning of the period and we haven’t started like other periods. But we are here to turn the situation around“, reported “Pelados”.

Asked if he is thinking about changes, he replied:I’ll see, the players are always the first to find out. You know some new footballers have come in who haven’t adapted yet. The truth is, we believe in the work we do, but we admit it when things don’t go well. And you (the media) know that my way of thinking has not changed. There were matches that we played very well and I kept an average line, there were games with mistakes and I talked about them. The previous game was bad and we accept that».

Regarding the situation of Levi Garcia and who will cover his possible absence, he said:We have to try and see. Levi may not be available and we’ll have to see how we resolve that issue. In this case I may have to change the position of some footballers. When we spoke for an hour and a half in preparation, I spoke from my heart. We are looking for a player with Levia’s characteristics. It’s hard to find him, but we keep waiting. There’s always a chance we’ll find him, but at the moment we don’t have him and I have to think about what I’m going to do. When I test players in other positions, I don’t wake up in the morning and say ‘I’m going to do it this way’. For me there is always a goal. It all depends on the result, if Pineda played right back and we won it was all good, when Szymanski played stopper against Brighton and we won it was all good. But when I select a player to play in another position, I prepare him for that. I don’t wake up one morning and say ‘Pelios will play right winger’. The ideal is to have two players in each position and it is very possible, almost certain, from the first match in the league you will see the changes. We have to win tomorrow’s game. There is only one position we have a player in, that of Levi Garcia. I will not ask for a player to come just to come knowing the effort of the management. I see a lot of footballers, I’ve seen over 30 who play centre-forward. But I don’t want AEK to be the team that a football player will come to… rest when he’s not playing for another team. I want whoever comes in to be competitive and in the mood, to raise the level and competition in the team. This makes a team more complete».

On the mistakes of Thomas Strakosa and the lack of solutions in the goal after the injury of Alberto Brignoli he said: “We have signed two very big goalkeepers. Where do you expect that when you get two goalkeepers, one seriously injured in the warm-up and the second coming from a very good Euro and suddenly he goes through that phase. But I still think we have two great goalkeepers and we have to give them confidence. We have all noticed the mistakes. Let me remind you that even in the first match he had made an assist, he had made important interventions, until he made the first mistake. When a coach or football player makes a mistake, then people talk about you, they say that you are not useful anywhere, that you are a disaster. In these two years, what we had achieved based on the presence of the team in every stadium and with our results was this union and the respect that existed, even though there were always mistakes. Whoever doesn’t take risks, doesn’t make mistakes. There will be mistakes. We have to understand the moments, as someone who has more experience and has lived in different places, I understand different moments. The result comes through work, trust and competition. Our work has brought the team to be competitive and it would be a weakness on our part to believe all these bad things we hear. We recognize our mistakes and can work on them. The easiest answer would be that evil always repeats itself. Just as you often repeat something you do well, so you can repeat something you do badly».

Finally, he was asked for his opinion on the visit of Marios Iliopoulos to Spata and the fine he imposed on the team after the defeat in Armenia. “First of all, I respect everyone. I am grateful to the one who gives me a job, at this moment Mr. Iliopoulos. I am a coach but at the same time also a worker. There is an owner, Mr. Iliopoulos and it is good that he can come to Spata, talk with us and I did not see it as bad at all. I saw it as very positive. What we need to do is to have a happier president so that when he comes he will be happy and joyful and not anxious. This is what we will do. I thought his visit was good. It’s a way to start getting to know each other in depth and to start this new project. Let us all be united, as Mr. Iliopoulos said».