Alejandro Dominguez:
-Did you believe that Olympiacos could have made it through: “I don’t believe, or ever believed, that any player can achieve something on his own. It takes a great effort by the entire team; any player coming from the bench has to always be ready to step in and help. He has to go in and perhaps speed things up a bit, which is what I tried to do tonight. It is never easy to achieve something when all circumstances are against you in a difficult match. Tonight, things were tough for us, but -thank God- I did it.”
-How difficult it is to handle such a situation?: “That’s the price of playing for such a huge club. in hardship, you always have the responsibility and task to deliver when moment calls, and you always have to do so in the best possible way, even when things do not turn out well for you”.
-Would you like to dedicate the goal you scored to someone? “Firstly, I dedicate this goal to my family, my wife and children, because they are the ones who know better than anyone what players have to go through at home. I’d like also to dedicate it to the fans and my teammates, but first and foremost to our President. He is always there, ready to support and defend us. He is always by our side, in good and bad moments alike. When things go bad, players are always the ones to bear the responsibility. So, at this very moment, I would like to dedicate this goal to the President”.
-Will this qualification helpy our work harderandbring Olympiacos back on the road to performing well?: “If we really believe in that, then we can change this current situation and work hard to this end. All things always require hardworkandpatience. We now have the time to work on the required changes”.
Alberto de la Bella:
-About his muscular injury in overtime and the fact that he made such an effort to stay in the pitch:“This is the result of trying too hard. I have to admit that the entire squad made a huge effort to grab this qualification. So, this (injury) was the outcome of addressing this match too intensely.However, I tried a lot and wanted to stay in the pitch until the end, despite the acute pain”.
-About the huge effort paid by him and his teammates when the found themselves one goal down:“indeed, the match didn’t turn out well for us. Thiswasn’tourintention. Our aim was to score lots of goals. But when one fails to score, it is true that moments of suffering will follow. We are all disillusioned but we had to turn the match around in overtime, because this qualification belonged to us and no one else”.
-Will now that the qualification is secured, be calmness, so that you can display on the pitch the things you want to:“Indeed, there are things we have to improve and work on. We must work a lot on securing a match’s result, on creating more chances and be more effective in goal scoring; because when on fails to score, then a long ball may suffice for your opponent to knock you down and this means huge problems. That’s something we have to fix”.
