Olympiacos suffered a 2-1 defeat in Thessaloniki against PAOK, with the Piraeus club’s coach, José Luis Mendilibar, focusing on the team’s performance in the second half.
In detail, the press conference of the experienced “red-and-whites” manager:
How difficult is it for a team to come back after going 2-0 down so early against PAOK?
It’s very difficult after the kind of first ten minutes we had. But there’s no other choice than to try and get back into the game. It’s a shame we didn’t manage to start strong, and that made things difficult – we couldn’t turn it around. Our game plan was to come out aggressively, focused, and not give anything away to the opponent. We tried to do that in the second half. We changed our image, pulled a goal back, but despite our efforts, we couldn’t find the equalizer.
Olympiacos lost a derby for the first time in eleven months, and the last time was also here at Toumba. Do you consider this the toughest away ground? Also, could you tell us about your decision to start with two strikers?
It’s true that every time I come to Toumba, it’s a ground I enjoy playing at. Even before I arrived in Greece, people had spoken to me about it. It was also the first stadium I managed Olympiacos in. I do enjoy coming here. I’ve said before that PAOK is a competitive side. They may not have big names, but they’re very cohesive and always make it difficult for us. As for the formation, Yaremchuk was coming off some good performances, and El Kaabi was eager to play. I thought that if we fielded two players full of motivation, we’d challenge the opponent’s defence and apply pressure. But we focused too much on ourselves and not enough on the opponent. We conceded twice in the first ten minutes, and that showed that our thinking was flawed – we should have taken the opponent into account, as they did with us.
Do you think you share any similarities with PAOK’s coach? And what is it that you want to change moving forward?
That’s for you to decide. He has his own philosophy and way of thinking about the game. His team is always competitive and applies pressure. Lucescu is a coach who believes in his team, and rightly so, as they’ve won their last two matches. Everyone has their own approach, but it’s up to you to find the similarities between us. What we definitely want to improve is the way we start matches. We lacked focus and conceded two goals early. That’s our fault – and by extension, mine as the coach. When a team comes out unfocused from the very first minute, the coach is also responsible. Losing concentration right from the start is unacceptable.
In the next matchday, if Olympiacos beats AEK, you mathematically clinch the title. What does your team need to do to achieve that?
I don’t want to think about what it would mean if we win or what we’d need to do to win the title. What I want is to prepare the team like we do for every match, with the aim of winning. Our goal is to have a calm, focused week, to work with our minds on the opponent, and to get the victory. Thinking about what happens if we lose or don’t win just creates anxiety and distractions, and it takes away from our preparation for the actual match. So our sole focus is on winning the next game.
As the coach of the league’s top team, how do you feel about a derby where both goalkeepers looked to bypass the midfield with long balls and go straight into attack, playing direct football?
It’s true that both teams want to play in the opposition half and “claim” more territory. That could suggest we don’t link up well or struggle to build play from the back. But the reality in this match was that, due to the strong wind, we didn’t want to take risks. We aimed to win the second ball, which would put us closer to the opponent’s area. Losing the ball in our own half would’ve meant taking risks. So yes, that’s what happened in this game. It’s not always the case, but in this particular match, we saw it quite often.
