Statements from Pellegrini:
Málaga-Barcelona
“I’m not sure if it’s a question of motivation, but with Real Madrid, like Barcelona, there’s definitely a lot of excitement in the air. When it comes to the level of play, as well as motivation, the points are still the same. They’re two teams that have a different game-play, Barcelona has a very defined style, where technique prevails over tactics. They’re a very compact team in every aspect. Alexis? A player who’s been here in Europe, and today he’s working with a great team”.
High Expectations
“When expectations are so high, and you don’t achieve everything you hoped for, the dream becomes bigger than the reality. We need to keep improving in all areas to be able to keep growing. Whether we’re in Europe or not, we need to look beyond that to ensure Málaga grows as an institution. We’d prefer not to have had this bad run of results, it’s difficult though as every team goes through it; we just need to learn from it and not forget what we as a team are capable of. Other teams respect us, and we need to find a way to defeat them. The team will go out tomorrow like they did against Real Madrid, fully aware of how strong the opponent is”.
Style of football – Absence of Toulalan
“We try to have a defined style and maintain a winning mentality. There are a lot of things we need to improve on, and we’re looking at variations of play and different solutions. We’re now up against a big team and we need to have a great performance in order to beat them. The style of play can change, but the players’ mentality needs to be the same match after match. The absence of Toulalan is significant, we have Ignacio Camacho who had been held back due to Toulalan’s impressive game-play, and trains well like Maresca; Apoño’s exit would allow for Recio to take his place, this will be revealed tomorrow. We’ll keep working to achieve our goals”.
How to play Barcelona
“Every big team is used to playing on Wednesdays and Sundays in various competitions. In the League they’re 5 points behind Real Madrid, which is a significant gap. In Villareal we played 10 times, won 4, lost 4 and drew 2; with Real Madrid the games were fairly even, and now in Málaga we’re going to try and ensure that Barcelona has very little possession of the ball; and when we have it, not to lose it. We’re not going out there to try to take the ball from Barcelona, that’s impossible, but once we have it we hope to make our rival work hard”.
Project MCF
“At is stands, the team is well structured. We need to grow in all aspects of the game, and at the end of the year we’ll see how far we’ve come, there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Expectations are high as always, our fans continue to support us, and we want to take the team as far as possible. Out of 18 games, 14 have been for European positions. Pre-set goals often aren’t good for a team. We’ll see what happens in May, but for now the most important things is to win the next match, which will be difficult as it’s Barcelona".