Vitoria: “Lucescu’s absence will not affect us – We also fight for our fans, they are the heart of the club”

THE Panathinaikos is counting down to its first game in 2025, which is, of course, the big derby of matchday 17 of the Stoiximan Super League against PAOK.

Ahead of Sunday’s great match (05/01, 20:30), o Rui Vitoria talk to COSMOTE TV and the SPORTSHOW showwith the technician of the “clover” stressing that his team wants to continue the positive results in the match against the champion of Greece, speaking, in fact, of a great challenge.

He referred to the work that was done during the holidays, but also to the absence of people from OAKA due to the punishment, as well as that of Razvan Lucescuunderlining among other things: “PAOK is a very strong team, very well organized, has quality, works very well, properly and organized for a very long time with the same coach, so the fact that he won’t be on the bench I don’t think it will affect the game they play too much. The players define the game».

What he said in detail: “We want to start this period, the new year, as well as possible. What we want, essentially, is to have a continuation of what we have done, to continue, that is, the positive results we have had lately. Anyway, so far, I’m being honest, I haven’t come across a game that isn’t difficultso all the matches that are coming, whether they are derbies or not, we know that they will have their own peculiarities. It is a very big challenge for us and a very big opportunity the fact that we start the year facing such a big opponent as PAOK.

For us it is a game, which we have to face with a lot of faith in what we have been building all this time, in the group of footballers with a lot of optimism and a positive attitude. Because I think so what we have created so far is something very beautiful and we want to see it continue and get positive results.

-About how they worked during the holidays:

“Yes, I think things went exactly as we expected. I don’t think we could do any better. Certainly for us it was very positive that we had this period to be able to work with all the footballers and most importantly, to have several training sessions, which were not strictly related to upcoming matches, but to focus purposefully on our own team.

After this period, I think we trained very well, we worked on these elements, which we wanted to put into our game, either defensively or offensively. Knowing full well that now very demanding and continuous games are comingin which we will need to put into practice what we have trained for».

-For the absence of the crowd and the absence of the opposing coach:

“I think that although there are two factors that could theoretically affect a game, ie the fact that we will not have our fans and the opponent will not have his coach on the bench, in the final it is the players who will affect the resultthey are the ones who will determine what will happen on the pitch. From his side I have to say that it is really a shame that we will not have the fans with us and this because as we have said many times, they help us and give us a great boost. We must not forget that above all we fight for the club, but we also fight for the fans who are the heart of this club. The fact that we won’t have them around to show them the progress we’ve made in recent games is certainly sad. Let me make it clear that it’s not something I’m complaining about, I’d just rather play in front of our fans.

Regarding the part of the opposing coach, we can say that PAOK is a very strong team, very well organized, has quality, works very well, properly and organized for a very long time with the same coach, so the fact that he won’t be on the bench I don’t think it will affect the game they play too much. And to finish as I started, the players are the ones who define the game, they will make the decisions, they are on the pitch, they give duels, so they will and should be the protagonists, so that is what we will see in specific game».