In the 3rd week of the UEFA Champions League, our representative Fenerbahçe will host the Czech team Slavia Prague. Coach İsmail Kartal and the team's experienced defender Nathan Ake spoke at the press conference for the yellow-dark blue team, who want to forget the Aston Villa defeat and achieve their first victory in the Giants League.
HERE ARE THE WORDS OF İSMAİL KARTAL:
Even though I say we are continuing our preparations for the Slavia Prague match, we do not have the chance to train much. Tonight, we will try to gather our players together with a little sweat training and explain the opponent. If we need to talk a little about the opposing team; They play a very physical football. We will fight against a tough team that has a very high tempo, plays man to man all over the field, and can apply very hard pressure. That's why we are aware of this. They play as a trio, and in some matches they can play as a quadruple. We have a plan against this team, no matter how they play, with the meetings we will hold with our players this evening, with the meetings we will have, whichever players we have are the fittest and healthiest. We have one or two or even three fictions.
"THE MAY BE ROTATION"
We think match by match. There may be a rotation, because we will decide on it tonight. As I just said, we couldn't train yesterday, they will come tonight. We will check the rest status of some of my players. We have some systems, we will put them to the test. Here's how much sleep they got last night, we'll look at their muscle fatigue. We will go to training and observe their conditions in training.
"WE DETECTED OUR DEFECTS"
We can be tougher tomorrow in bilateral matches. Because the Aston Villa match was a bad match for us. Even though we played good football and took positions, the score was not acceptable to the Fenerbahçe community, the fans, me, my team or any of us. But we also had shortcomings that match. We identified these shortcomings and learned from them. We talked to our players in just two days and gave a very good reaction. I think this reaction will be more in tomorrow's match.
"GREENWOOD MAY PLAY IN A DIFFERENT MISSION TOMORROW"
Mason Greenwood is a very creative, productive and quality player offensively, but he may have some shortcomings defensively. We are trying to do as much as we can by talking to him so that we can solve them. Maybe he may not be able to play some matches. But our expectation from him is that we want him to demonstrate his offensive productivity, quality and skill. For example, he can play in a different role tomorrow.
"ONCE AGAIN I AM PROUD OF MY PLAYERS"
Players like Asensio and Kante... These are our most valuable players. They are all valuable, but Asensio is a very different player. He is a very valuable player for us, and so is Kante. Both Kante and Asensio had pain in the Aston Villa match. During the half-time of the Aston Villa match, I asked Kante, 'Can you play, can you try a little?' I asked. 'Coach,' he said, 'If I enter, this injury may recur again and I may not be able to play for a longer time. 'I don't feel well.' Kante is very honest, very hard-working... Whether he plays well or badly... There are not many matches in which he plays badly anyway. He is a positive kid who always smiles and does whatever task you give him like a machine, always, in every training, in every match, as if nothing had happened. He is like that, so is Matteo... I mean, many of our players in the team right now, both local and foreign, are all very positive; Our energy is very high. That's why I'm once again proud of my players.
HERE ARE NATHAN AKE'S WORDS:
I think it will be a great atmosphere again. The fans helped us a lot in the first match. The Rome match was also difficult. But our fans always helped us in difficult moments. I hope the same happens tomorrow. I hope they can help us get 3 points again.
"WE ARE TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THINGS"
As you said, it was intense, there were a lot of matches, but I like it. So we don't have a lot of chances to train; match, recovery... But the people at the club are very helpful in the recovery process. We're trying to do the right things so we can be ready for the next game.
