Olympiacos coach José Luis Mendilibar, speaking after the team’s victory over Atromitos at “G. Karaiskakis”, stressed in the press conference that he was not satisfied with his team’s overall display.
Below follows, in detail, what the Olympiacos manager said:
After the international break, you earned a 3–0 win. How satisfied are you with the performance?
I see that, in general, we tend to look at the result rather than the match itself. I don’t think we played well. We gave the opponent far too much space to equalize, and overall, I believe we need to focus more on the team’s performance and not simply on the fact that we got the win.
Was this match a rehearsal for the game against Real Madrid?
No. Pre-season matches are rehearsals. Once the official season begins, nothing is a rehearsal. We approach each match individually without thinking about the next one. We weren’t thinking about Real Madrid today. We should have played better; we did win, but on Wednesday we must be much better and do far more on the pitch.
Against opponents like Atromitos, the team seems to perform better with two strikers. Do you agree?
When we brought on the second striker, we were already winning 1–0. That’s the point in the game when the opponent opens up and we have more space. But even with two strikers, the opponent threatened us and could have hurt us. In the moment you refer to, the quality of the teams becomes apparent, but you must know how to exploit that and not give your opponent the chance to hurt you — and we did give them that chance today.
Today’s match is over. Can we talk about the next one against Real Madrid? Do you consider it a life-or-death game?
You’re rushing quite a bit. We don’t want to talk about Real Madrid yet. The match against Atromitos has just finished. The moment to talk about Real Madrid will come, but now is not that moment.
