Olympiacos head coach, José Luis Mendilibar, expressed his dissatisfaction with his team’s performance against Panathinaikos at OAKA.
Here’s what the experienced coach had to say in the press conference:
“In the first half, we struggled and couldn’t penetrate the opponent’s area or apply the pressure we are capable of. The opponent made it difficult for us and continuously stopped our advances. We didn’t show the level of play we wanted. In the second half, we balanced the game and created chances to score, but we didn’t capitalise on them. I don’t think it was a good match overall. Both sides fought, but we didn’t see what we were hoping for from our team”.
You made a halftime substitution, bringing on Kostoulas. Did you see the changes you wanted in the second half?
Not an excessive amount, but I think we did improve to some degree. It wasn’t anything extraordinary, but we saw some changes and more intent to attack. We tried to push more into the opponent’s area, and we succeeded to a certain extent. However, we didn’t achieve exactly what we wanted; we just improved our offensive function a bit.
If you had any complaints, would it be about the final execution?
If you want to have a good attack, you need to start with a strong defense. When a team has solid defense, it naturally leads to a better attack. So, if you ask me, I would like to see an improvement in our defensive performance, and that will lead to better attacking play.
