Eter’s coach – Emmanuel Lukanov spoke after his team’s 0:1 defeat by Levski. The specialist believes that he had no choice but to bet on defensive tactics.
“We played defensively, that was the plan. With what we have in terms of potential, in the conditions we train in, against the team we were playing against, we have no other option. We wouldn’t have had a chance if we came out and played hard. We broke right on the winger, Welton crosses, I’m a little angry that a person who is not his strongest head game scored us, we preferred to be scored with a double combination, again it turned out ridiculous for us”, commented the specialist.
“We knew who and where we were playing and what our options were. My idea was to close down and have a man waiting for their attacking midfielder, individual class played its part. In a ridiculous way we conceded a goal, the first one could have happened, our the goalkeeper saved a lot, these are our opportunities, every game our players give not 100, but 1000%. We are looking to recover on Thursday, we have another game waiting for us”, he added.
“We cannot respond to their speed, to their surface, we train on other pitches, here we have 15-20 minutes to adapt, the dynamics are different, our conditions do not match theirs. It should have been smart, not stupid. At 1 :0 we had a corner, something could happen. Our idea was to have half a situation and it could happen. Our matches are different if we can steal something from Ludogorets, Levski, CSKA, Botev (Plovdiv), CSKA 1948 – those with the big budgets, we have no other option,” said the Eter coach.
“Knežević, I didn’t want to risk it because of bookings, the match with Pirin (Blagoevgrad) is important for us. We are looking for points against the teams of our rank. I think Eter deserves more points than what we have at the moment. It’s not over until it’s over. This is one of my things that I want to pass on to the players. Until it’s over, we won’t give up,” Lukanov said.
