Martins: “We were superior to the opponents”
Following Olympiacos’ narrow defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the UEFA Europa League Last 16, Pedro Martins expressed his frustration with the result, while Nuno Espirito Santo was happy to guide the English side to the quarter-finals.
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It wasn’t to be for Olympiacos. Dominating large parts of the game at Molineux, the Greek champions displayed their quality against a somewhat underwhelming Wolves team, creating several clear opportunities. However, Olympiacos were made to pay for their profligacy in front of goal, bowing out of the competition with a 0-1 loss on the night as Raul Jimenez scored the winner from the penalty spot following an awful mistake from Bobby Allain. Towards the end of the first half, Mohamed Camara thought he had drawn Olympiacos level on aggregate, but his goal was controversially ruled out for a marginal offside call against Youssef El Arabi.
“Nothing went our way in this phase of the competition,” stated a bitterly disappointed Martins. “We had a red card in Piraeus, Wolves scored a lucky goal there...today we conceded with a penalty. However, in terms of game play, we proved that we are better. We’re proud of our progress. We have a bitter taste in our mouths at the moment, we’re sad because we showed that we’re superior to the opponents. We could have gone further in the competition.”
“I would prefer not to comment on the referee’s decisions,” continued the Portuguese coach when asked about the performance of the referee. “I will watch the video and make a comment later. We have huge doubt about the offside decision, no matter how many lines they include. We want to progress further in Europe next season, our first goal is to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League.”
Olympiacos midfielder Mathieu Valbuena also emphasized the superiority of the Greeks on the pitch: “We deserved to qualify, we were a lot better than the opponents. We had lots of opportunities to score, but we conceded with a penalty. This was the best season of my career. It’s a shame to finish the season like this, what happened today was extremely unfair. I have never seen anything like this before.”
Wolverhampton boss Nuno Espirito Santo thanked his goalkeeper, Rui Patricio, for taking his club through: “Our goalkeeper helped us in the critical moments. We initially started the match well, but after we scored we began to lose possession easily. The Video Assistant Referee system? You are always annoyed when it goes against you. The qualification could have gone either way, but we achieved what we wanted. We’re proud that we are going to Germany to compete in the final phase of the tournament.”
“The match was lost in details,” added Olympiacos centre-back Ousseynou Ba. “We made several mistakes, and we are very disappointed with the result. We wanted something better for ourselves and our fans. Sadly, we couldn’t qualify, but it is the way it is. We must continue well because we proved that we are a strong team.”
Wolves midfielder Ruben Neves expressed his happiness at advancing to the quarter-finals: “This is a wonderful moment for us in such a competition,” beamed the 23-year-old midfielder. “It’s great for us that we will go to Germany to compete against excellent teams. That was our goal. It was certainly a tough game against Olympiacos, just like we knew it would be. Olympiacos have a really good team which likes to play with the ball at its feet. I think that we controlled the match while creating chances on the counter.”
