“The results of the friendlies came at the right time, things were not perfect, but the unity of the team gave us a big advantage”
His successful coach PAOK This year’s summer training and despite Champions of Greece They tallied four defeats in a row in friendlies, oh Razvan Lucescu He doesn’t care about the team’s image in official games.
– Confidence is a concept you hold high in your football philosophy and “Dicephalos” is now good enough for the champion. But is it possible that overconfidence creates problems like laxity and poor attitude or complacency?
“Since you asked about the product, I tell you everything is normal. It is normal to have this spirit and such feelings. First, most players never win a title in their career. Secondly, our club is not trained to win titles every year. We have four championships, two in the last five years, and Athens… stole one from us. The third element relates to the way we won the championship. It was an incredible and difficult feeling and when it happened, there was great joy. We finished fourth and eventually won the championship. This means that entire players are juiced up to make it over the course of the season. They pushed more than 100% to keep it long.
This extra mental effort and this whole attitude that now we’re flying, we’re happy and very confident is not great for the upcoming start. However, I appreciate that these pre-season results have come at a good time for us to understand that even lower quality teams can beat us even if we are not 100%. Players understand that.
In terms of physical condition, I saw in the analysis we were doing that we were doing very well. What I saw as a positive was that the team did not collapse in these games and always had periods of producing good football. Results were from single event-episodes. Always someone late, always someone slow to react, always overconfident someone made a mistake, in other matches it happened to Koulierakis who kicked the ball into the stands with two balls, or the likes of Genk and Otto who didn’t dribble there. , but he made a double mistake. Apart from these moments, the team created chances through collective football. The way we defended was done with the right mindset, runs, duels, overlaps. We don’t have any changes from past derbies. So I saw a lot of good elements from the preparation that will help the team get back to the right mental approach to the games.”
– Last season’s consistency could be a big advantage, but behind it could be the word stagnation. Opponents may be reading the team’s play better now, and the team may not be improving. Is this whole rationalization your fear?
“We have an advantage that everyone knows. If we take a few steps back, we have an advantage in that we can cover them very quickly. But at the same time we have some – transfer – targets, because all these should help create new movements, two, three, four. To strengthen our quality with players of different characteristics, I don’t know, so we get the unpredictability we need.
There’s a lot of unity in the group and that’s actually why we’ve been able to keep a lot of players. We have some problems, we have some hopes, but at the same time from my point of view it has nothing to do with the environment, but with us within the team, things are not right. Because Zivkovic will play the Euros and start the preparation in Thessaloniki, because after a year in Thessaloniki, Tyson got permission to go to Brazil, and we gave him five more days, and Despantov and Koulierakis got five more days, Constantelias and our responsibility here and his responsibility now that he has grown and become a responsible person. Because we didn’t manage his holidays well, but we also didn’t do well in the first few days of preparing for his sister’s wedding. Then he got injured and lost a lot of ground.
Kensiora is also a special case, missing most of the product starting three days ago. All these cases do not leave us in a good situation during this period. So we realize the situation and reach a point where we have to push harder. At the same time, it is my responsibility to maintain a high level of confidence in myself and the team, that they understand everything we discuss and get the appropriate message. Today is today, but we have a whole season ahead of us.”
– You said many times during production that everyone is flying in the clouds. How do you get them… on the field and keep your players… hungry well into the New Year?
“It’s my responsibility as a coach, but it’s also the manager’s responsibility as an owner. He doesn’t just put pressure on me to put pressure on him. It’s up to us to keep the team’s confidence and motivation high. It happened last year with a lot of work, it’s not going to happen magically. Discussions at a team and individual level Very good preparation is required.
To solve emerging problems and manage difficult situations. To convince the players that because some are growing up, or some have more experience than others, they are still kids and if they don’t learn how to behave, they can easily derail. This is our job.
But there are times when we need a bit of luck too. I always tell my players to be right, be humble, be honest and give everything. Because it is the only thing that will go our way. We have discussed many times how to take a single shot to score the opponent’s goal and score. But sometimes you can shoot the same way and the ball hits the post or the goalkeeper saves. It means something is not right. In this production, first pass the ball away from the opponent and into the net. In the match against Aris, Morone crossed and finished out. Dyson’s finish was perfect. During this period, finding the post, finishing or tackling, even from a penalty. This is because we are not on the right track at the moment. But like I said before, this is normal.
And it is a good experience for us to understand that if we put all our energy and all our determination together, we can do miracles. But if we don’t have that mindset, smaller teams can get results from us. Everything happens now for a reason. I hope we are smart enough to understand that and stay united to lead the team to victory.”