Rui Vitoria: “I have seen great spirit from my players, they are prepared for the difficult period”

Beginning with the match with Panetolicoon Sunday afternoon in Agrinio, o Panathinaikos enters a very difficult period with 9 games in a month.

In this demanding situation, Mr Rui Vitoria he emphasized that everyone on the roster should be ready and stressed that he has seen a lot of enthusiasm from his players so far in the work they have done together since the day he took over.

Talking to her camera Cosmote TV in the special pre game that will be shown at 16:00, one hour before the match, the Portuguese coach initially said:

“We wanted from the first moment we came, to have more time to do some training with our players. It was a good time to work on some exercises we wanted to do. Of course, the fact that we didn’t have 10-11 players, who were missing from the national teams, is something that we didn’t want, because many times people think that we had fifteen days to work together. Things were not like that, because on the one hand you are missing 11 international footballers and on the other hand in these 15 days you cannot work on all of them, since the footballers have to rest from the consecutive matches that had preceded them.

So essentially these days were fewer, however, we tried to take advantage of this time as much as possible, to put in some exercises or some ideas from the game model we have and little by little as the rest of the footballers were returning from international obligations, to they also get into the atmosphere. In general, I would say that it was something positive for us, it wasn’t the ideal or what people think, but it was what we needed at the time.”

-For the series games that follow:

Yes, definitely, we are entering a difficult period, a period where, as you said, we will have nine consecutive games in a month, so we are basically talking about one game every three days. The first and most important thing to understand is that all footballers will be essential in this process. This is something they already need to realize. For example, they may not play in the beginning, in the first few games, but surely during this period they will all be needed. We, for our part, should choose the appropriate strategy for each specific match.

There should be a very good recovery and rehabilitation after the matches, so that we can have the footballers as quickly as possible ready for the next match. More generally, I would say that at the moment I am very pleased with the work of the footballers. I have seen great mood, I have seen that the footballers have understood the difficult period we are entering and are prepared for this process. I, for my part, will try to manage as best as possible the human potential we have and I think we will do well. I believe that we will perhaps need a bit of luck on our side, but I think that once all the players have the opportunity to play, we will be able to get the best possible results.”

-For the difficulties of this particular match against a very good opponent:

“Our goal is definitely to win this match, with all due respect to the opposing team. However, I think the most important thing is how we present ourselves on the field. We must not forget that the opposing team may have had good results against some big teams, but they will play against Panathinaikos. A very big team with good footballers. This is also the reason why I say that from one point of view we are not so concerned about what has happened in the past matches of the Panaitolikos. It is certainly something that we have seen, we have analyzed, we know exactly what we want to “hit” the opposing team, however we give more weight to ourselves and our own performance.

Regarding the opponent, we can say that they are definitely a good team, they seem to be very well organized, they seem to have worked very well. He has some specific ideas on the pitch and he tries to implement them in the most effective and simple way possible. It also has some footballers, who if they get the chance will be able to hurt you. We on our part defensively should be very focused, very disciplined tactically, so as not to allow the opponent to create dangerous situations near our goal and on the other hand, we should when we have the ball at our feet to know exactly where we have to “hit” and to be as efficient and direct as possible in our game in order to be able to get the positive result”.