Our President, Mr. Vaggelis Marinakis, was in Monaco today, Thursday, where the heart of European football was beating for our Olympiacos. Olympiacos head honcho said the following after the draw:
In details:
“There is no such thing as an easy or difficult draw when it comes to Champions League. We will face two clubs of much bigger budget than Olympiacos, i.e. Paris Saint-Germain and Benfica, whereas Anderlecht has a budget similar to ours. This is not the “easy” 4th team in the group we would expect.
Certainly, that could have been Napoli or some Spanish side that would be even stronger. We are both happy and optimistic;we believe that should Olympiacos plays according to its capabilities and given our roster this year, the side will be able to overcome any difficulty –and I have no doubt we can do that. So, I am optimistic that we can make it to the next stage.
We are currently waiting for a couple of additional signings within the next 2-3 days, who will help us both in our European fixtures and those for domestic championship.
We are optimistic, we want to go the extra mile in Europe and qualify to the next stage. In the last 2 campaigns we came really close to that and our side did not qualify for a point or because of some last-minute goals in injury time.
This year, I want to believe that from opening match already, we will make a strong start, our coach will fully use this great squad available and move forward to give joy to our fans”
On Olympiacos targets in Greece and Europe: “As you saw with the case of PAOK, it is not easy for a team to perform both on Wednesdays and Sundays, for Champions League and Championship fixtures, and always get the win. Olympiacos has done that, successfully enough, but it is not easy. It takes a lot of –concentration and hard training; moreover, the players must have the qualities to deal with all these. It is not easy; it takes years to “build” a team that may respond to such demanding schedule and win at the same time.
Once again, ourselves we want to move forward despite hardships –and I have no reason not to believe otherwise- and fulfill our objectives, i.e. to win the Greek Championship and go far in Europe. I believe we will do it and come out of that victorious”.
On his dream about Olympiacos in Europe: “From the moment that Olympiacos makes it to the top-16 stage, then anything may happen, since it will be just two matches: one at home and one away. The thing is to give now our best in the following 6 matches and make it to the next stage.
We may get stronger; we may get better prepared and go even higher. We want that, it is our dream”.
On Olympiacos U-21 team that participates in U-21 Champions League: “We have paid great attention to our young teams, the academies and this was proven last year by our U-21 team’s long campaign and excellent performance in European fixtures for NG; we believe that the team will do equally well this year also. We have done what we should do in our academies, we keep on doing more and I think that the U-21 coaching staff and all people involved will give their best to go even better, just like last year. We are very pleased and we are optimistic that we will go forward with flying colors”.
