The Champions League returns tomorrow evening and Juventus travels to Bruges this Tuesday evening, for a very important match. On the eve of this match, Thiago Motta and Teun Koopmeiners spoke to the press.
The words of Thiago Motta:
All attackers are available:
« I’m happy because it gives alternatives to start but also in the current match and that will help, hoping for continuity. »
Le Club Bruges :
« A great team, difficult to play against. We are ready for anything, we have to put in a great performance to win. »
Dusan Vlahovic titulaire ?
« JI can’t tell you. Against Milan, he was ruled out by technical choice. Now we have a lot of choice, it’s not the quantity of minutes that is important but the quality and that’s our philosophy. »
Is the team progressing?
« I see progress, but not only in the last matches. I have seen it from the start, despite the injuries, the transformation of the group, the youth of the team. In the last match against AC Milan, winning certainly gives more enthusiasm and energy to prepare for the next match against a team that is organized and playing well. »
Victory against AC Milan?
« We are happy to have won. But we have had many other matches where we played well but failed to win. I am happy with the growth, now we need continuity. »
Samuel Mbangula confirmed :
-« His development is very good. Last year he played at Next Gen, where he trained in our youth sector and I congratulate those who worked there. Since the start of the season, he has done well and that is what counts: not the quantity but the quality of the minutes and he is the example to follow. »
Lessons learned from Teun Koopmeiners:
How does he feel?
« I think the last match went well, of course after the match there is something to improve in the details. But overall we are happy with what we did, there are just a few results we wanted to improve. But the last match against AC Milan, for example, gave us more confidence, including for tomorrow. And tomorrow is always a great evening to play the Champions League. It will be a lovely evening. »
The current dynamic:
« We had more injuries in the first phase of the championship, it was a completely new team, new players, in midfield too. We had to learn about ourselves in order to do more, to do better. Every game we have to learn how it went, everything that happened. After these months, we move forward, we learn every day, even me with Thuram, Locatelli, Fagioli, Douglas. With everyone. It’s important to work well in training to do better, to know yourself. This is important for the experience, for the automation in the field. We saw it during the last matches. »
Everyone can learn:
« I have seen over the last six months that everyone wants to win, to learn. We certainly said we could do better. But it is very important to have players who want to learn. Everyone loses, it’s normal, it’s important to learn afterwards and we work 100% to improve. We have seen this in recent months and it is important. »
This match will be important:
« How do we prepare for this match? The same way we always prepare. We watch videos. We train and we see how we operate on the pitch, how we defend, how we attack. We look at Bruges. Individualities. They are very strong, energetic, with the ball. They want to play. They are one point away from first place. They are always playing for first place. It will be difficult, but we are convinced that when we come out we play well with the ball, with energy. And we can win. »
This Belgian opponent:
« We saw that they are one point away from first place. They are very talented and fight for the title every year. I’m also from the Netherlands and we get a lot of information from Belgium. They play well with the ball, they have a lot of talent and energy. Tomorrow will be a very difficult match, we are playing against a team which has a lot of quality and which will need a lot of energy. »