At the press conference following the end of the match against Panathinaikos in Leoforos, the coach of Olympiacos, Carlos Carvalhal, highlighted in his statements the lost opportunities that Olympiacos had.
When the match ended you said that Olympiacos could still win the championship. What should they do to win it?
We obviously have to win games to get the points we need and reduce the gap. This is the way.
Are you concerned about the team’s ineffectiveness? Why is Olympiacos creating opportunities, but not scoring?
This summarises the entire match. What we lacked was efficiency. In the first half, Panathinaikos was ahead in opportunities, controlled the game, and managed to score. In the second half we had better control of the game, while I believe we stood well in the first half as well. We had our opportunities as we did in the first half, but we were not effective. We certainly need to work on it and it was certainly our main problem during the game. Just as we need to improve the finishing of the phases in order to be able to score during the phases we create.
What did you like about Olympiacos?
As in all games, there are things I like and things I don’t. I certainly did not like the way we conceded the two goals, but I liked the team’s attitude because our players tried until the last minute. I liked that we created the conditions to score goals and win the game and, generally, I liked the behaviour of my players.
Beyond the ineffectiveness in offences, there seems to be an issue in defence as well.
All problems can only be fixed by work. We will work on fixing things we don’t do right. There are details that cost us, as in the match with the two mistakes we made and conceded the goals. The only way to fix mistakes is work.
How easy is it for you to “bond” so many new faces to the team?
This is how things were when I joined the team. When I came, I knew that people would be leaving and new ones would be coming. But this is not an excuse, it is a situation that I knew of beforehand and I have to deal with. There are players who did not join the team at the same time; some came three weeks ago, while others got here two weeks ago. A new player will be arriving. The only way, as we have said, is to work and to build the team together with the new faces.
