Jesualdo Ferreira: "Málaga have done a great job over the last two years; Panathianaikos, the reverse."
Panathinaikos trained at La Rosaleda this afternoon, where they’ll take on Málaga CF in the first leg of the Champions League play-offs. Their trainer, Jesulado Ferreira, and player, Vitolo, spoke to the assembled media in the press room.
Jesualdo Ferreira's statements
(How he sees the game) “I reckon that Malaga have taken a big step and has positioned themselves in a Champions play off – something unthinkable just three years ago. It’s something that has been achieved one way or another by working hard to make it possible. Tomorrow we have a match against a team that, for the first time in its history, is doing battle in the most important UEFA competition. Panathinaikos is a club with a great international history, even though its recent history hasn’t been its best. Since I arrived there’ve been many problems following a radical moving of budgets and ideas from the past to the present.
As such, tomorrow two teams with very different back-stories will meet, but the actual reality is that Málaga’s coming from a better position than us for the future positions because sometimes even great clubs like Panathinaikos are not in their strongest moments and other smaller clubs have more powerful teams. Málaga ended up fourth on the Spanish table, in the strong Spanish league, they have a strong squad of excellent players who’ve done a great job over the last two years; Panathianaikos, the reverse; we’ve had a load of problems over the last two years. That’s the difference.”
Vitolo's statements
(The objective, going through). “It’s just a coincidence that we’ve got a Spanish team but the idea’s the same, the only thought is getting positive result in a playoff, which is double match, getting a good result in order to concrete it at our home ground.”
(How he sees Málaga). “We all know Málaga’s team, it has good players, and they’re in Champions on their own merits; they deserve to play against us tomorrow. Málaga are going to be a tough rival, but I think we can get a good result here and go through.”
