“It’s time to dream again.” José Luis Mendilibar was satisfied but calm on Wednesday night after qualifying Olympiacos for … the next round of the Champions League. While thousands of Greek fans celebrated that their team was still alive in the top continental competition and their players jumped for joy in the locker room, the Zaldibar coach used his usual modesty to explain what the Greek media described as a legendary qualification. «We are doing what we think we know how to do without changing too many things since we arrived here two years ago. The players are humble and accept what we tell them. They don’t want to change and that’s important,” he summarized.
In their return to the Champions League after five years, the Piraeus team beat Ajax (1-2) at the Johan Cruyff stadium. Victory was the only valid way to enter the play-off. A header from Hezze ten minutes from time broke the 1-1 tie, and a saving intervention practically on the goal line by center back Retsos allowed the Greeks to qualify. “I thought it was going to be a goal and no one was going to come to take the ball, and a miracle has arisen,” summarized the coach.
This is how what Olympiacos has achieved in its 21st participation in this championship can be described. With three games left until the conclusion of this phase, they only had two points after the draws against Pafos and PSV. And in the last three games they achieved complete victories against Kairat Almaty (0-1), Bayer Leverkusen (2-0) and Ajax.
Atalanta vs Leverkusen
The one from Zaldibar continues to grow with a club that he joined in February 2024, four months after he was fired from Sevilla, and with which he won the Conference League in his first campaign, and the League and the Cup in the second. This year they are second in the domestic competition standings, two points behind AEK Athens, but with one game less.
Their players, among whom is the former red and white Dani García, have perfectly assimilated Zaldibar’s game system where high pressure, a more advanced defense and direct play through centers into the area are almost essential, along with the demands that this entails. So far he has been able to perfectly capitalize on the ten goals scored in the Champions League. At 64 years old, the Biscayan is enjoying a second youth on the bench because success has come to him when he least expected it.
Today he will meet his next rival. Atalanta or Bayer Leverkusen. Asked which one he prefers, Mendilibar was clear: “Whatever he plays will be welcome.” The seconds already know what it means to beat them. The round of 16 of the competition is a little closer. To see the best result of the Greeks in this championship, we must go back to the 1988-89 campaign when they were eliminated by Juventus in the quarterfinals. But Mendilibar is in no hurry nor does it want euphoria. Work is your best guarantee to get your players to perform and bring joy to your fans. And so that they can do it, he doesn’t mind taking a shovel and removing the snow from the training field as he did yesterday, the day after signing another feat with the Hellenes.
