Although Alessio Lisi’s press conference was held in anticipation of tomorrow’s (August 20) match against Brann, most of the questions he received focused on the Konstantelia issue.
The PAOK coach acknowledged that this is a huge loss for the team, emphasized the urgent need to find a player of Konstantelia’s caliber for that position—though he acknowledged that this is quite difficult—and stated that he must now adjust his game plan.
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Here is what he said in detail at the press conference:
On Bran’s absences: “Bran has plenty of alternatives. We’re also playing with players out; that’s soccer, so there will be a balance.”
On the reactions regarding Konstantelia: “I’m focused on the game; we have some of the best fans in the world. I’m sure they’ll be with us for the full 90 minutes, and that will be the key to the match.”
On whether the game plan will now change: “We need to come up with something, because he’s a very high-caliber player. We have two big matches coming up, and we need to rectify this situation. We have different players who can contribute to help us adapt to the post-Konstantelia era.”
On what kind of match he expects: “A game where Brann will put a lot of pressure on us. We need to be ready to withstand that pressure from the Norwegians. We need to match their pace, which will be difficult because Brann is in the middle of the league standings.”
On transfer needs: “He’s a very important player. We need to sign someone for that position, at a similar level. I trust the sporting directors and the management. We need to find players for this position who can contribute similarly to Delia. Two players in a similar position to his. It’s impossible to find a player of comparable caliber so soon.
Tomorrow is the most important match. Let’s give it our all. Right now we have some issues with Zivkovic, for example, so we need to handle that. We can talk about the schedule, but we need to focus on the match against Brașov and qualify for Europe.”
On Konstantelia and the team’s poor starts in their official matches so far: “We had a good conversation yesterday when he came to practice; obviously, I won’t share everything. I told him he deserves the best; he’s an exceptional person, an exceptional soccer player, and I wished him all the best. We should have won the first match against Anderlecht. We played poorly in Belgium. This is our fourth official match. The first three were good, so we’ll keep working to fix the issues from the last match. I hope tomorrow we’ll see the team we were seeing before the Belgium trip.”
On the temperature and the expected rise in heat, which could potentially affect the opponents: “For me, it’s more important that Brann is in the middle of their league season than the heat. That’s more important.”
*photo source: KYPE
