In the usual press conference before the replay with Club Brugge (Thursday 18/4, 22:00 – Toumba), the Romanian coach mainly stood for the help of the people.
“My psychotherapist advises me not to look at the past, but to see only the present and the future. It will be a good experience for us and this game in Europe. We want to qualify for the semi-finals of a European competition for the first time, that is our goal, to get there. We did well against Marseille in the quarter-finals of the competition two years ago when we met again. Then we were eliminated with our heads held high. Every game is different and has its own story,” Lucescu said in his initial statement.
To add about the match at the Jan Breidel Stadium in which the Belgians won 1-0: “In that game, they were pushed by their crowd. As I said then, we tried to fight. We didn’t fall down. We reacted. The result could be different. We could have equalized at the end of the game. Football is about details that determine the progress and the score in every game.”
For Lucescu to make special reference to Toumba’s “power”: “Listen, I don’t like this kind of talk. I know we will have good support from our people. The opponent will not feel the fear. But the world will give us energy. This will be a great advantage for us. In the difficult moments when we will put pressure on Club Brugge, the atmosphere of Toumba will create problems for them.”
The 55-year-old coach was asked to compare Dinamo Zagreb, who were eliminated by PAOK in the previous round (2-0 defeat in Zagreb, 5-1 triumph in Thessaloniki), to emphasize: “I never compare teams. Certainly both have more experience than PAOK. But you can’t compare what happened five months ago or two weeks ago.”
And after Lucescu clarified that “… I have coached teams in Greece for eight years. I’m part of Greek football and I’m very proud of it,” he concluded by saying: “Overall, we don’t have the advantage. Tomorrow is a game of mental preparation. For some it will be a game of life. It will give us the opportunity to play in the semi-finals of a European competition. It’s not the most important match. There have been others more important. No one was giving us possibilities to reach this point. Certainly the level of quality and experience is different. We have to be 100% ready.”
The PAOK players were represented by Adelino Vieirania, who brought as an example several times the excellent performance of his team in the rematch with Dinamo Zagreb in the round of 16.
“We want to continue making history, despite the fact that the result of the first match was not the best. We will give everything we have and what we don’t have, 120 and 150% of our strength to qualify for the semi-finals,” said the experienced Portuguese in his initial statement.
Who after pointing out about the presence of the fans in the stands of Toumba that “… He doesn’t have a ticket, whoever got it got it. Tomorrow we will have the undivided help of the world for 90 minutes or even 120 minutes. The world will support us having the same passion for us for the overthrow”, he finished talking about what will be the “key” for PAOK to qualify: “The key will be for us to score and for them not to. We play at home with the crowd by our side. We want to go in determined. We have shown that we are present in difficult times. We were two years ago in the same place and now we are here again. What we have to do is be our best selves.”
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