Losada and Kvída: “Excited, but with the utmost respect for Dila Gori”
Our head coach, Hernán Losada, and defender Josef Kvída represented Apollon Limassol at the pre-match press conference ahead of Thursday’s second leg against Dila Gori in the first qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League.
Losada expressed his excitement ahead of the club’s first-ever European match at the Alphamega Stadium.
“It’s finally happening. We are all incredibly excited. Me as a coach, all the players, the staff and everyone who has a heart for this club have been waiting for this game for a long time.
As a club, with our history, we deserve to be playing these kinds of European games more often. Our first objective is to finish the job and then to put on a good performance for our supporters, to keep building momentum, continue winning and prepare ourselves for everything that comes after tomorrow’s game.”
The Apollon coach stressed that, despite the 4-0 advantage from the first leg, his team will approach the match with maximum concentration.
“I’m not going to speak about any possible future opponent. For us, it’s only about Dila Gori. We have the biggest respect for them and tomorrow we will play the game as if it were 0-0, with the greatest sense of responsibility.”
Speaking about the significance of the occasion, Losada added:
“It’s an honour to be the coach in Apollon’s first European match at the Alphamega Stadium. I’m very proud and I hope we can all enjoy this special night. Hopefully, this European adventure will last for many more matches and we’ll have many more European nights at our home.”
Asked whether he expects a different approach from the Georgian side, the Argentine coach replied:
“I honestly don’t know how Dila Gori will approach the game. We invest much more time in improving our own style of play, our principles and how we can become a better team.
We’ll try to play our football, just as we did in the first match. There are no easy opponents in modern football. If the first game looked comfortable, it was because the players executed the game plan exceptionally well. That’s why we’ll approach tomorrow’s match with exactly the same seriousness.”
On the possibility of making changes to the starting eleven, Losada said:
“I haven’t decided yet. We may give more minutes to one or two players who returned during pre-season. It could be a good opportunity to keep as many players as possible at the same level of readiness for what’s coming next. I’ll make the final decision after today’s training session.”
Representing the players, Josef Kvída emphasized that the squad remains fully focused on completing the task.
“The coach said it perfectly. We are in a very good position, but there are still 90 minutes to play. You can feel the excitement around the club and among our supporters because European football has returned to Limassol and to the Alphamega Stadium. It will be a special occasion and we want to show everything we’ve been working on over the past five weeks and bring joy to our fans.”
The Czech defender concluded by underlining that the first-leg result will not affect the team’s mentality.
“We showed in the first game that we can play good football, but we are approaching tomorrow’s match as if it were 0-0, with full respect for Dila Gori.”
Press Office
Apollon Limassol
