Positive
“The beauty of football is that anyone can win. There are other sports where it’s generally considered that the favourite always wins. In this case, clearly, Barça are the favourites, there’s no denying it. It’s logical, their stats are unquestionable, but everyone here has beaten Barça at some point. I did by 4-0”.
Motivation
“I can see the players are highly motivated. They are collaborating, immersed in training sessions, they apply themselves, ask lots of questions… What they want is to get out of this situation, but they’re not allowing themselves to. With 13 points at this stage in the competition, we should be totally out of the running. However, permanency is about every matchday. We could score another 13 or 14 points, plus the usual sprint on the last day. We’re going to cling to that glimmer of hope”.
Football greatness
“The great thing about football is that every Malaguista who comes here will be thinking we’ll lose tomorrow, but deep down they’re thinking, ‘what if we win’? Why not? Everyone in this dressing room has defeated Barça at some stage. It’s normal that they’ll be much stronger than us, and can beat us, but football is football, which is why it’s so great. I’ve seen the team training hard. It’s going to be an extremely tough match”.
Fans
“We want to give them what they deserve. There are no ‘buts’ in regard to our supporters. They’ve endured poor results yet have been behind us at every turn. Of course, it’s logical that they’re angry and disillusioned. We understand this because football is about results, beyond the image you convey or good and bad luck. That’s what creates happiness and sadness. In this case, we’ve not given our fans anything but sadness. I hope we can bring them some joy this weekend. In the end, for us they are three points, but they would be three good points to enable us to start growing”.
