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Razvan Lucescu once again publicly said what he wanted his players to hear in his dressing room, but not by opening an umbrella of protection for them but by making them also co-responsible. Savvas Tziobanoglou analyzes what the 55-year-old PAOK coach said.
The Razvan Lucescu who was presented to the press on Friday (15/11) was a… another Lucescu. Only when he was asked about the 23-day suspension imposed on him after the derby with AEK did he remind the good old Lucescu, stressing that he is always fighting against “a system of lies, manipulation and theft that has not changed from 2018 to today”.
Otherwise, what he said about the situation in which his team is in was nothing like the coach who, after the match against Levadeiakos, made a fuss about the fine imposed by the administration on the players and emphasized that he was even ready to take the suitcase and to return to his home in Bucharest.
Today the 55-year-old coach obviously deliberately set a line, taking sole responsibility for what has happened from the beginning of the season up to the game with Olympiacos and sending a clear message to his dressing room that now the footballers are also jointly responsible.
A typical move… by Lucescu, who tends – if not always, certainly most of the time – to say what he says in public for his players to hear.
The admission for his players
For the first time, however, even if he did so indirectly, he publicly admitted that his players put their “I” before the team. Alas, he tried to gild the pill, stressing that this happens most of the time because of the excessive desire that each football player individually has to give solutions to the competitive problems faced by the whole team as a whole.
But even so, Razvan Lucescu indirectly but clearly admitted that there is an issue. You could hear him talking about his players and it was as if he was talking about two teams in the same locker room, the ones who were already here since last year – who have, however, lost their minds a little since winning the championship – and the ones who they came in the summer and have not managed to become one with the rest.
“And for that the responsibility is solely mine” he said “because I thought this year we wouldn’t start from scratch. I thought we would build on what we did last season when in fact I would have to start from minus 5.”
In this way, by putting his players in front of his responsibilities and making them essentially co-responsible, not because things have reached this point but for what will follow, the PAOK coach tried to wake them up. He said it himself in an aversion to his speech that today’s press conference was intended to provoke them and wake them up.
Tough on his team
Of course, while he appeared tough on his team, considering what this could mean for his dressing room, he decided not to say anything about what happened in the summer with the transfer planning, the players who arrived late and the ones he wanted to has and after all she is not with him. When asked specifically about transfers and those who managed them, he preferred to draw a line separating “today” from “past” even the most recent.
And in this case he took on a great responsibility, even with the footballers he was co-responsible for. And this is because he can no longer use – logically or not, it doesn’t matter – as an explanation the delays in transfers or any other failures in planning. These are now… old and what matters is to find solutions for the current problems.
From what he said, the… different though, Lucescu, seemed to be determined to bring back the fighting spirit to his team, the same-mindedness between the players and the game by game to the extent of point-hunting. And speaking mainly about the two games his team lost in Toumba against OFI and Olympiakos, he showed that he has now drawn the conclusions he wanted, he gave as many opportunities as he had to give and that from now on his choices will be different. But we will have to wait to see this in practice.
In the negativity he admitted that he possessed all the previous period and he himself sees that his team can achieve high goals. And if an away victory in Europe, it is not certain that it can change the fortunes of PAOK in the Europa League, in the championship he was right to say that everything is fluid. And more so when he said that the comparisons with what the team achieved last year are the ones that make their progress so far, this season, problematic.
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