-On his original thoughts after qualifying to the UEFA Champions League group stage: “It was a couple of difficult months of really hard work. Congratulations should be solely addressed to my players because they were the ones to have struggled that much. We thank our President for being there for us and both supporting our will to sign certain players and keeping the players we needed in the team. This has helped a lot to qualify. I would like to thank my players, it was a tough journey and we are really happy we got this qualification”.
-What was the key of the match?: “Our away goal. Once we scored, Rijeka lost their footing. We had chances to score more goals. In the second half, we were not that good; it was a bad half for us. Perhaps, it was pressure that led our players to give Rijeka more space. There was pressure and so we left our opponent get back in the game. Tactically, we were good; we made an almost perfect performance for 70 minutes stopping Rijeka players. Although we were not good after the break, we managed to stand our ground, we failed to score a second goal. We are happy we ultimately won the match”.
–On Odjidja Ofoe: “Not just about Ofoe, but for many players. We signed 5-6 good players. Not only did our President bring players on board, he also kept good players in like Retsos, Fortounis, Kapino. We are so grateful to the President for materializing our desires. We brought in some young Greek players, like Koutris. We have a very good team and our President did what the coach asked for in order to bring our fans what they deserve. Olympiacos deserve playing in the UEFA Champions League. On top of that, I chose to use Ofoe as our side’s “10” because Rijeka features a great midfielder in this position. We chose to play with 3 players intercepting this particular player, by means of blocking his way and keeping possession. We wanted to play differently. This doesn’t mean we don’t want to have Fortounis in because he is not good. He was amazing in the previous match, however this time I paid attention to no names, but only to the way we should play in order to qualify”.
-On transfers: “We have a very good squad and I believe the issue of transfers is now closed for us. I hope we lose no players. We want to keep the players we have, because this is a team to go far. It is possible to lose a player if a club offers us lots of money. However, we won’t be mad since the President will replace him. We hope our team will remain as it is for it is a good team”.
