Levski are going out solely for victory against CSKA, head coach Julio Velázquez said ahead of the derby between the two teams. The match will be played on November 8 at 17:00 at the Vasil Levski National Stadium in Sofia.
Serginho and Buras remain doubtful, with the final decision regarding them to be made after training. Mitkov and Kirilov will definitely not play.
“We still need to consider various situations before deciding on the starting 11. Obviously, we played on Thursday, and we had a recovery and compensatory training session,” Velázquez said.
The focus must be on the derby
The coach pointed out that the players who played a large part of the previous match are currently undergoing recovery. According to him, the same applies to their opponents.
“We are in a situation where we need to show maturity. If we think about Thursday, that is bad. If we forget about Jagiellonia, we can fight for the victory,” the Spanish coach said.
Velázquez described CSKA as a good and intense team with many high-quality individual players. He stressed that their opponents maintain a high tempo and create chances both during transitions into attack and in defence.
“If we want to perform well, we must show the same intensity. From there on, we need to steer the match into a course that will help us win it.”The lineup will be decided at the last moment
Velázquez said that the starting lineup has still not been decided. The decisions are being made internally by the sporting and coaching staff, without influence from public expectations or the comments surrounding the team.
“We are not looking for any kind of excuses, because both teams are coming into this under the same conditions – we played on Thursday evening,” the coach said. He added that the staff must take into account the injured players and the accumulated fatigue.
Velázquez also commented on the financial differences between the clubs. According to him, Ludogorets and CSKA have bigger budgets than Levski, but the Sofia club is working to close the gap through organisation and development both on and off the pitch.
Sources: bnrnews.bg, bta.bg