Ferreira: “This victory will give us confidence”
After beating AEK, PAOK head coach Abel Ferreira noted the importance of winning, while Massimo Carrera spoke about his players’ motivation in the Super League.
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The AEK wait for a win against PAOK goes on. In what was a tense, tight encounter, PAOK tallied a vital set of three points at the Toumba Stadium, as Vieirinha converted a second-half penalty to keep the Dikefalos tou Vorra within one point of league leaders Olympiacos. AEK, in a very distant third position, had Niklas Hult and Marko Livaja sent off in stoppage time.
“If we look back at the first game against AEK this season, only their goalkeeper prevented us from scoring more goals,” stated PAOK boss Abel Ferreira. “The same thing happened today. Games and victories like this will give us confidence, a lot of our players on the pitch didn’t have lots of experience of major derbies. It was an intense, nervy game today, with a lot of personal duels. Overall, I don’t think that AEK made more mistakes than us, but the smallest of details decide the outcome of these games. We need patience and time.”
“I am pleased with the performance today,” revealed AEK manager Massimo Carrera. “We played against a good, strong team with plenty of quality. I am not looking for an excuse, but, in my opinion, the referee should look at the screen himself for debatable decisions instead of just listening to people through the microphone. Our motivation moving forward? We want to pick up as many points as possible. We were more aggressive in the second half, and I was angry with our lack of ball control in the first 45 minutes. We tried to limit the space available to PAOK.”
Vieirinha, who grabbed the PAOK winner from the penalty spot, noted that he spotted where Vasilis Barkas was moving: “Barkas is tall, and I noticed that he was moving to his right. We feel confident in our own abilities. Our targets for the season? We want to win both the Super League and the Greek Cup again. We also wanted to qualify for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League in the summer, but that didn’t happen. The main thing today is the score.”
Commanding PAOK centre-back Fernando Varela felt that the score reflected the balance of play: “We deserved to win today, the result is fair. It was key that we didn’t concede any goals. In the closing stages, we struggled a bit as AEK increased the pressure, but we coped well and saw the match out successfully and fairly. We are not letting Olympiacos run away in first position.”
