Vitoria for Panathinaikos – PAOK: “To have continuity in what we have done,

He spoke about his image so far and referred to the importance of his team continuing its good course against PAOK, with him standing in the absence of Razvan Lucescu from the guest bench. To continue on the road of stability that has been carved in recent weeks (and) in Sunday (5/1, 20:30) big game with PAOK in OAKA for the 17th Super League race is the call for Panathinaikos as Rui Vitoria stressed. The Portuguese technician of the “trifyllion” spoke about the derby of the two teams, stressing that despite the absence of the world, in the end those who determine what will happen within the playing field are only the players. In detail Rui Vitoria’s statements “We want to start as best we can right now, the new year. What we really want is to have a sequel to what we’ve done. To continue with the positive results we have had lately. Anyway, so far, honestly, I haven’t met a game that’s not hard, so all the games that come whether they’re derby or not, we know they’ll have their own specialities. It is a great challenge for us and a great opportunity that we start the year facing such a great opponent as PAOK. For us it is a game that we have to deal with with with a great deal of faith in what we have been building all this time, in the football team with a great deal of optimism and positive attitude. CORVERSE Because I think that what we have created so far is something very beautiful and we want to see it continue and get positive results.” How he worked with his players on vacation: “I think things rolled just as we expected. I don’t think we could do any better. It was certainly very positive for us that we had this period to be able to work with all football players and most importantly, to have several trainings that were not to do clean with coming matches, but to focus targeted on our own team. Of course you understand that there was a festive climate in some cases, there were vacation days which were something footballers deserved and needed very much. So they can rest, fill their batteries, spend quality time with their family. After this period, I think we’ve been doing very good training, we’ve been working on these elements that we wanted to put in our game, either in the defensive or in the offensive part. Knowing very well that now come very demanding and continuous games, in which we will need to put into practice what we trained.” For the absence of the world and the absence of the rival coach: “I think that although they are two factors that theoretically could affect a game, that is, the fact that we will not have our fans and the opponent will not have his coach on the bench, in the finale they are the players who will influence the result, they are the ones who will determine what will happen in the field. From his point of view, I have to say, that it is really a shame that we will not have fans with us and that because as we have said too many times, they help us and give us too much impetus. We must not forget that above all we fight for the club, but we also fight for the fans who are the ‘heart’ of this club. The fact that we won’t have them around to show them the progress we’ve made in the last game certainly saddens us. I make it clear that it’s not something I’m complaining about, I’d just rather fight in front of our fans. As for the opponent coach’s track, we can say that PAOK are a very strong team, very well organized, has quality, works very well, right and organized too long with the same coach, so the fact that he won’t be on the bench I don’t think it will affect the game too much. And to finish as I started, players are the ones who determine the game, they will make the decisions, they are in the field, they are giving duels, so they will be and must be the protagonists, so that’s what we’ll see in that game.”