Henriques has problems, but is optimistic ahead of a game like no other Olimpija has ever played: ‘Football is not the NBA, we can make history’
Everything is ready for a match like this in Ljubljana
Olimpija
has never played before. If the Dragons would like to play on Tuesday night – the game will start at 20. an hour – beating Ludogorets, they would have already booked their place in the group stage of one of the three European Cups. But the task will not be easy, no matter what. Ludogorets is, after all, a club that has had many successes of one kind or another. European ones too. No matter what, Olimpija is optimistic. Joao Henriques, the Green-Whites’ coach, has no doubts that Olimpija will be“ready for the fight“, although he adds that Ludogorets“have played 45 European games in the last four years, Olimpija 14“.
“Ludogorets is the favourite and they will want to show it on the pitch. They will attack and look to score goals and try to advance. On the other side, tomorrow they will find a similar team that wants to dominate, press quickly and take the ball away from the opponent. They have a lot of quality, but each match is a chapter of its own. It depends on the result and who scores first, there are many factors that influence the course of the match,” he told a press conference ahead of the return leg in Ljubljana,
where a very good attendance is expected
, Joao Henriques stressed.
Joao Henriques: “Sometimes miracles happen”
Olimpija is not without problems before the game. It is true that Pascal Estrada is coming back, but it is also true that Raul Florucz will be rested for a long time due to the injury he suffered in the win over Rogaska. Even longer than Justas Lasickas, the Latvian national team player will be sidelined for a few weeks.
Despite the difficulties, Joao Henriques believes that his dream, the dream of the team and the dream of all those who are close to Olimpija, can come true. “We want to keep dreaming. But we know who we are playing against. Against a club that bought a player for 3 million this month… But that’s football, you never know what will happen. An NBA team will always beat the amateurs. They cannot score as many points as the favoured opponent. But in football, sometimes miracles happen. And that’s what we believe. We don’t look at the budget, we don’t look at the money. We have 90 minutes ahead of us, giving us the chance to make history and give our fans a special gift,” said Joao Henriques, an expert from Portugal who has never come close to such international success in the past.
This text was automatically translated using AI.