Rui Vitoria: “Thanks to the work of football players in Panathinaikos, everyone will have the chance to play”

He spoke about his game against Panateolikos on Sunday (24/11/24, 17:00) in Agrinio, with the Portuguese coach stating that he is pleased with what he has seen from his football players, stressing that everyone will have the chance to play in the next period. Rui Vitoria wants to lead Panathinaikos to the victory against Panatholikos, in a difficult away game in Agrinio, with the technician of the “trifyllion” emphasising the ways in which his team will be able to win, and he also talked about the interval of interruption for the National teams. In detail Rui Vitoria’s statements On the work done during the break-up period for national groups: “We wanted from the first moment we came, to have more time to practice with our football players. It was a good time to work on some exercises we wanted to do. Of course, the fact that we did not have 10-11 players who were missing in the National Teams is something that we did not want, because many times people think we had fifteen days to work together. It wasn’t like that, because on the one hand you lacked 11 international football players, and on the other in these 15 days you can’t work at all, since the football players need to rest from the consecutive matches that had preceded them. So basically there were fewer of these days, however, we tried to make the most of this time, to put some exercises or ideas on the game model that we have and slowly as the rest of the football players returned from international obligations, to get them into the climate as well. In general I would say that it was something positive for us, it was not the ideal or what people think, but it was what we needed at the time.” For the series games following next month: “Yeah, sure, we’re going into a difficult time, at a time when you said we’ll have nine consecutive games in a month, so basically we’re talking about one game every three days. The first and most important thing to understand is that all footballers will be necessary in this process. This is something they already need to understand. For example, they may not play at first, first games, but they will certainly be needed during this period. We on our side should choose the appropriate strategy for each particular struggle. There should be a very good recovery and rehabilitation after the games, so that we can have football players as quickly as possible ready for the next match. More generally, I would say that right now I am very pleased with the work of football players. I have seen a great mood, I have seen that footballers have understood the difficult period we are entering and are prepared for this process. I, on my part, will try to manage as best as possible the life force that we have and I think we will do well. I think we might need a little luck on our side, but I think that once all football players have a chance to play, we will be able to get the best possible results.” For the difficulties of this particular match against a very good opponent such as the present Panetolic: “Our goal is definitely to win this race, with all due respect to the opposing team. However, I think the most important thing is that we will be present in the field. We must not forget that the opposing team may have done good results with some major teams, but will play with Panathinaikos. A very big team with good football players. That is why I say that from a point of view we are not so concerned about what has happened in the last Panetolic games. Surely it is something we have seen, we have analysed, we know exactly what we want to hit the opposing team, but we give more weight to us and our own performance. As far as the opponent is concerned, we can say that they are certainly a good team, they seem to be very well organized, they seem to have worked very well. He has some specific ideas within the field and they try to apply them as effectively and as simple as possible. It also has some football players who, if they get the chance, can hurt you. We on our side should be defensively focused, too disciplined regularly, so that we do not allow the opponent to create dangerous situations near our dorm. On the other hand, when we have the ball on our feet we need to know exactly where to hit and be as effective and direct as possible in our game so that we can get the positive result.”