Reaction motivation and Corberan’s thoughts on Olympic XI vs Slovan

About a week ago, Olympiacos suffered a tough 4-0 defeat by Maccabi Haifa and was eliminated from the Champions League qualifiers. Developments from the next day were rapid, with Pedro Martins a thing of the past and Carlos Corberan officially taking over on Monday (8/1).

The Spanish coach had a few days to prepare his new team and implement his first lessons with the team. In particular, before the decisive game against Slovan Bratislava, he completed only three training sessions (4/8, 22:00, COSMOTE SPORT 1, LIVE Sportish) for his 3rd qualifying round European League.

Carlos Corberan emphasized the psychological part in his first press conference. Admitting that the time he had to work was short, he stressed that the motivation of his footballers is of great importance, especially the motivation of the reaction after the last game.

“There are moments in football when you have to use positive things from Mr. Martin’s time. Especially when you don’t have that much time to change things in the team on a regular basis. We have to influence the psychological part and give motivation. To show that we are a team with a winning mentality. I think tomorrow the most important thing is the motivation and the emotional part.” expressly stated.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos was also on the side of the reaction with his statements:That Maccabi thing wasn’t Olympiacos. We still have a guilty conscience, it was an embarrassing game. We decided to show everyone that it was a bad moment that shouldn’t happen again.” Therefore, footballers seem thirsty for a return to success.

It follows from Corberan’s philosophy and words that Olympiacos will play dominant football. From the first minutes he will try to conquer the ball and have the initiative for the movements. At the same time, he will try to keep his balance and take care of the stern.

This is how the Spaniard described the ideal way of playing: “I would like to see the team attacking for 90 minutes and creating chances. Sometimes that’s not easy, you have to defend in some places. Find a way to be solid in defense. Find a balance.”

All open for Corberan’s starting lineup

Olympiacos announced the two changes to their squad on Wednesday evening (08/03). Inbom Huang was dropped from the Russian Federation due to a delay in his paperwork. João Carvalho is also unavailable, with the above two’s places being taken by Usainu Ba and Avila, who had also worked with Corberan at Huddersfield.

In addition, there are some problems in the defense of the red and white, with Manolas and Vrsalikos being doubtful due to problems. The Spanish coach tried his hand at a trio in defense in his early days, with the Croatian being one of three stoppers. This plan seems to fall apart if Cisse, Papastathopoulos and Ba are not deployed.

In general, everything is open-ended, with Corberan not revealing his thoughts while no mission has been announced. It remains to be seen which formation he will choose and which footballers he will qualify for. That is, whether he continues with the base used by Martins and adds his own accents, or whether he proceeds with drastic changes.

It will also be interesting to see if the Spain coach will bring back players missing against Maccabi, such as Arabi and Embilla. There are still question marks on the wings with Gary Rodriguez, healthy, back and collecting his own chances. All the above questions will be answered at Georgios Karaiskakis a few hours before the cross.

The list of Olympiacos in detail:

LIST A

• Androutsos
• nope
• Bouchalakis
• Agibu Kamara
• Mandy Kamara
• size
• El Arabi
• Avila
• none
• cut out
• Manolas
• Masoura
• Rodriguez
• Embilla
• Papastathopoulos
• Rangelowitch
• Ryabchiuk
• Tiquinio
• Tzolakis
• Vatslik
• Valbuena
• Vrsaliko
• zinc nail

LIST B

• kitsch
• Liatsos
• Do
• Papadoudis
• Chelios