Vitoria: Satisfied with my players – We are a big team, you always play the next game to win

Panathinaikos faces on Thursday the New Saints (12/12, 22:00) for its 5th matchday Conference League.

THE Rui Vitoria spoke at the press conference and emphasized that it is a lot content from his football players, while he then mentioned that his team always looks at the next game and how they will get the three points.

Panathinaikos definitely needs a win, maybe even 2 to be placed in the first 24 places. What element will the team have tomorrow to overcome the opponent’s obstacle?

“I think Philip said it pretty well. I would totally agree with him. We are a big team, you always play the next game to win no matter what is at stake. We are not here to make calculations, we are only looking at the next match. New Saints have ambitions, they have a specific playing philosophy, which we will have to neutralize.

In every match we try to study the opponent, not to lose our own identity that we have “built” well in the last games. This is our approach. We know the next match is very important, but that goes for everyone. We are concentrating on tomorrow and from there on we will see what happens”.

In the last two matches you changed 9 and 8 players respectively (in the starting line-up) and every player who enters the field does exactly what he replaced. You have achieved team cohesion. Is this a good guide, is it an item he can have in the sequel? Whoever plays should perform the same.

“Something I would like to share with you is that I am very satisfied with my players. This is in line with what I had said from the first times I spoke, that I was seeing a team with very quality players. I think it is not at all easy to achieve what we have achieved, at the level we are at. Essentially we are talking about a team that has consecutive games every 2-3 days.

We’ve gone on a run of 9 games in a row, we’ve played 5 of them. Certainly for a manager it’s a huge satisfaction to see that no matter which player I use, the performance of the team doesn’t change. This gives me great hope that we will do even better in the future. As I said before, in a quite complex process, we see that the team has improved not only in automation, but also in the mental part, in determination and will. We believe until the end that we can get the victory, even if the facts are difficult. It’s something we’ve been working on. The players have responded very well to the ideas we want to pass on to them. There is still room for improvement, but I am satisfied at the moment.”

You mentioned both the football identity of the team and the spiritual part. We saw after the match with Asteras Aktor you tell the players to greet the people. Do you see the team’s reconnection with the world as another benefit of your job?

“I’ll agree to that. I think that in any club, especially one as big as Panathinaikos, the more people are united towards a common vision, the stronger it becomes. We felt this a lot in Tripoli. In very difficult conditions and for the fans, we felt a great push from them and we, receiving this, did everything we could to repay it.

They were two interrelated things, which together gave us this important victory that we celebrated so strongly. With our performance, we pushed the fans to push us even more and this helped to bring the positive result. Certainly things will not always be perfect, there is room for improvement, but we want to maintain this character, as well as the connection with our fans”.