‘This game is very important as we can bridge the gap on those at the top who are not playing’
José Gomes, UD Almería team coach, asks his team to ‘forget about the noise’ and ‘stay focused at work’
The day has finally come! UD Almería are to face the longest match of the year. The Rojiblancos’ participation in the last season play-offs led them to get their matchday-2 fixture against Real Zaragoza postponed back in September. It has been quite a long wait but Jose Gomes’ men will finally be playing the game while the Christmas nougat are being sold in the supermarkets across Spain. There is a window of opportunity this Wednesday to bridge the gap on the on the top two-finishing teams, Mallorca and Espanyol.
José Gomes gave his take on the imminent game and considers it as a golden opportunity: ‘It’s an important game because we can bridge the gap on rivals who aren’t going to play that game’. At the same time, he made it clear: ’It's good to play finally this postponed game but what I’m not so clear about is if this is the most appropriate moment due to the number of matches that we’ve been playing recently. While the rest of the rivals will have the whole week to prepare their next commitment, we’ll be playing midweek again, what means that our schedule has been nine games playing every two or three days. Our fixture list is much harder than the others for the time being. But we have to play it and that’s it.’
Although Almeria will have to find that ‘opportunity’ on the field of play: ‘Zaragoza are coming from achieving a victory in a difficult game and against opponents with great intensity. They did very well. We just have to play as usual and give our best version. If we do it, we’ll surely clinch a victory. We respect Real Zaragoza because before this last victory, they had previously played games good enough to have taken the three points. Out next adversaries showed everyone that they can do well and we must do better to win’ explained the Portuguese head coach. He also clarified: ‘Their position in the table is misleading from what we’ve been able to analyse during their matches.’
This is being a historic 2020/21 season since the relegated teams from Primera to Segunda Division have never started off a championship so strong: ‘We all knew it was meant to be a very tough league and that in the last ten games there will be changes in the table. The important thing is to follow our path and stay focused on doing our things right. There will always be a lot of noise around us. We can’t stray off our path and we should leave the rest aside so that it doesn’t affect us,’ pointed out José Gomes before concluding his pre-game press conference.