Manuel Pellegrini Wednesday highlighted the importance of Thursday’s clash Real Betis in Kosice he is new FC Kryvbasin the first leg of the play off of Conference Leaguea tie faced by the Verdiblancos forced to win, with no margin for error.
“I think the worst mistake we can make is to think that we are classified before playing. We played against a team that is behind two Ukrainian classics, which usually play Champions. Thinking about a future goal is always a bad idea in football. We have to play tomorrow, try to win it and we have 180 minutes of games to try to qualify. Later, we will play in the group stage if we beat this rival, but from there to think that it is a competition that must be won, I think it would be a very big mistake. “We have to show tomorrow that we can play in the group stage.”
The calendar will start to tighten with matches on Thursday and Sunday and Pellegrini will make his usual rounds: “Long week coming up and, as I have said on other occasions, that playing on Thursdays makes an impact on Sundays. “We have to dose the squad to stay up to date with the competitions and one competition is not a privilege over another,” which indicates that the Brazilian Natan will start this Thursday: “Natan has been training for a few days with the squad. He has come from doing a complete preseason with enough work to be part of the team. We will see tomorrow if he starts playing.”
Pellegrini does not want to analyze the possible arrival of Vitor Roque: “As long as he is not a Betis player, 25 or 30 names appear in the press every day. We will see between now and the end of August how the squad is restructured and which players can come.”
Asked about Betis’ goals in European competition, he stated the following: “I feel every year, Betis’ ambition is the highest in all the competitions we play. Whether it is the Conference, the Europa League, the LaLiga, the Copa del Rey… Then, due to various circumstances, a fact is established, and that fact must be overcome by playing in good teams. If we manage to qualify, we have to think about qualifying in the group stage and not think about something hypothetical in the future,” said the Betis coach, reluctant to label Betis as favorites in this competition.
Source: La Verdad
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