„Levski“ coach Julio Velasquez gave his traditional briefing this time before the match with „Spartak“ (Pleven) for the Bulgarian Cup.
„We have great respect for the opponent. All our concentration must be on the opponent in order to win. Regarding the starting 11, I will obviously not comment. We will bet on the best that will bring us victory“, Velasquez began.
„Ultimately, we are a professional team and if we cannot cope with the trip and emotions, then we have a problem. The main focus is us as a team, but we also need to know who we are facing, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. The first step to performing well was yesterday's training. The team was focused, especially the players who had more intense work. This is very important for me because I like to see how the players react to the different challenges that tournaments present us. This is character - how you will react in a given match, how you will deal with travel and emotions,“ continued the Spaniard.
“Sangare will definitely be out tomorrow, but we think his injury will be milder than what we saw at the beginning. We will see how he recovers and whether he will be an option for the match with “Arda“. Kirilov is recovering, we will see if he will enter the training dynamics in a short time. Mitkov is still experiencing the same problems that he had with the youth national team. He is making steps in the right direction, but it will be difficult for him to be in the group tomorrow. Akram is recovering extremely well. He has options to enter the group tomorrow. Of course, the moment with him for tomorrow's match is delicate, but we will have to weigh all aspects to see if he will come in. These are the cases of injured players“, the specialist commented on the injured players in the team.
“On Thursday we played on a pitch that looked incredible, it was fast, but also a little hard. But of course a pitch on which football can be played. Of course we know what the pitch is tomorrow, because I wanted to know it. As I always say without excuses, we must show our best in order to perform at a high level. From the point of view of the history of “Litex“ (Lovech) and the matches with them, I am familiar. However, tomorrow we play with a different team. Of course, we are sure that the support tomorrow will be incredible and we must give the right answer to it“, concluded Velasquez.