At the press conference before the Euro League Final Four in Piraeus, all four participating teams showed up and coaches and players of the respective clubs shared their expectations before the big event starts on Saturday. Here are what they had to say.
Semi-final 1
UVSE-Hunguest Hotels (HUN)
Marton Benczur, coach – “We’ll play
against one of the teams with which we maintain a very friendly relationship,
I’d say, though I’m sure tomorrow this friendship will not exist in the water
among the players. It’s a great task as we face a very strong team in the
semi-final. Maybe we are the underdogs, but we love this kind of challenges. We
will do everything to win two games in two days and I’m confident we can
achieve that. I trust in my team, we are young, a good mix of experienced and
young players, we have only Hungarians in our roster, half of them are under 18
years but I’m sure they will show how talented they are.”
Gabriella Szucs, captain – “I think
our team is pretty much prepared for the game tomorrow. We had very good
preparations for the coming weekend, we did the best to be ready for the
atmosphere, we created a soundtrack for one our trainings to try to create the
amazing atmosphere for our young players in order not be stunned on site in
Piraeus. I think this way we were getting ready both mentally and physically
for this weekend. We have to show 100 percent, it’s only one game, so we my
upset Olympiacos.”
Olympiacos Piraeus (GRE)
Aleksandar Ciric, coach – “We are the
reigning champions, and we face the same challenge as in last year, a game
against UVSE in the semi-final. They showed a really good performance a year
ago and they did well this year too. They had a brilliant goalkeeper and great
players on the perimeter so it’s going to be an interesting game and a
spectacular event here in Piraeus. This is the city of water polo this week, we
had the LEN Trophy final here on Wednesday, now comes the Euro League Final
Four, we can’t wait to be in the pool and start the game. For me, it’s a nice
job to lead this team in the footsteps of Mr Pavlidis who is one of the
greatest coaches and during his fifteen years here he created something which
is huge and historical both in the European and world water polo. It’s a big
change for me to coach girls after the boys but I think the principles and the
training methods are more or less the same.”
Margarita Plevritou, captain,
Olympiacos – “I’m very happy to have the Final Four once again in Greece after
2015. We remember the great atmosphere from the last occasion and it’s great to
play in front our fans and families.”
Semi-final 2
Astralpool Sabadell (ESP)
David Palma, coach – “We are very
excited to play here in Piraeus again, the pool, the fans, the atmosphere are
all fantastic. We face Padova in the semis and we have a huge respect towards
our Italian rivals as we know from experience how hard it is to play against
them.”
Martje Keuning, player – “We are very
happy to be back and play in the Final Four again. Last year the team didn’t
make it, and the players missed this event too. We are very well prepared for
these two matches and I’m too excited already, to be honest!”
Plebiscito Padova (ITA)
Stefano Posterivo, coach – “The
atmosphere in Piraeus is always incredible, it’s a pleasure to play in this
kind of atmosphere, especially when you are in the Euro League Final Four, the
most important club event in women’s water polo. We have four very strong teams
here and we play with Sabadell, the top club of the past decade. We are ready
to play and fight and give our maximum in the pool.”
No comments:
Post a Comment