Lopetegui anggap Porto dan Basel sama kuat

Basel, Swiss (ANTARA News) - Pelatih FC Porto Julen Lopetegui menegaskan timnya dan FC Basel sama kuat dan tidak ada tim yang difavoritkan menang pada leg pertama 16 besar Liga Champions di Stadion St. Jakob-Park, Swiss.

"Tidak ada tim favorit, yang penting adalah siapa yang bermain lebih baik. Segala sesuatu di luar hal ini hanyalah prediksi," kata Julen Lopetegui dikutip dari situs resmi FC Porto, Rabu.

Kendati menegaskan tidak ada tim favorit, namun Lopetegui memuji pengalaman pelatih Basel asal Portugal, Paolo Sousa, yang sudah melakoni 200 laga internasional bersama Basel.

"Paulo bisa mengatakan berapa pun skor yang dia inginkan, tapi Basel jauh lebih berpengalaman dan mereka memiliki dua bulan persiapan sebelum pertandingan ini," kata Lopetegui yang juga mantan penjaga gawang Rayo Vallecano.

"Kami sangat ambisius untuk laga ini, Basel adalah kota bersejarah bagi FC Porto. Banyak fans Portugal yang akan mendukung kami," katanya.

Pelatih asal Spanyol tersebut mengakui bahwa FC Porto memiliki anggota tim termuda di babak 16 besar Liga Champions namun hal itu akan dimanfaatkan untuk tampil penuh energi, harapan, dan ambisi.

"Tugasnya (Paulo Sousa) adalah mencari tahu FC Porto dan tugas kami adalah mencari tahu Basel. Saya yakin kami berdua melakukan itu. Ketika berbicara tentang petualangan di Liga Champions, harus diingat bahwa tidak ada jaminan kami ada di dalamnya karena kami menjalani babak kualifikasi yang sangat berat melawan Lille. Sekarang kami menikmati pengalaman ini," kata Lopetegui.

http://www.fcporto.pt/en/noticias/Pages/Conferencia-imprensa-Julen-Lopetegui-antevisao-FC-Porto-Basileia-oitavos-Champions-2014-2015.aspx

LOPETEGUI: “THERE ARE NO FAVOURITES”

According to Julen Lopetegui, “there are no favourites” in the elimination round opposing Basel and FC Porto, which starts this Wednesday (19h45, mainland Portugal), in Switzerland.

At the press room in St. Jakob-Park, the white and blue coach pointed out the experience of the team led by Portuguese coach Paulo Sousa – with “almost 200 more international matches” than the white and blues

“There are no favourites, what matters is who plays better tomorrow. Everything else is just talk. Paulo can come up with whatever numbers he wants, but Basel is far more experienced and they pretty much had two months to prepare for this match.

We are very ambitious for this game, as it’s a historical city for FC Porto. There will be many Portuguese fans supporting us and there are too many reasons to not think of what doesn’t matter”, Lopetegui stated.

The Spanish coach reminded the fact that FC Porto is the youngest team in the Round of 16 of the competition, but that won’t stop FC Porto from using “all the energy, hope, will and ambition” in this match against an opponent that is “very complete, in every aspect of the game” and “well trained” by Paulo Sousa.

“His job is to know FC Porto and our job is to know Basel. We’ve both done that, I’m sure. When talking about this adventure in the Champions League, it should be reminded that we weren’t guaranteed to be in it and that we had an extremely hard qualification against Lille. Now we are enjoying this experience”, the coach explained.