“We have to play a perfect match against Barça, a team called to win everything”
BARCELONA, 3 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The coach of UD Las Palmas, Francisco Javier García Pimienta, is clear that against FC Barcelona – his previous club – the match must be “perfect” since it is a team “called to win the Champions League, LaLiga, the Copa of the King and all the competitions”, and assured that he was grateful to those who decided not to continue in Barcelona, in the reserve team, for giving him the opportunity to join the Canarian team.
“A long time has passed since that. I have not had contact with Laporta again but I want to thank him because thanks to that decision I am here. I had the opportunity to come to Las Palmas six months later and it is an unbeatable story for me. I am very comfortable and I feel very loved in the ideal place,” he said at a press conference.
García Pimienta, who had one more year on his contract as coach of Barça Atlètic, was terminated by Joan Laporta and his Board of Directors, who opted for the arrival of Rafa Márquez to the reserve team. And that exit, not sought by the Catalan coach, with 20 years of experience on the benches of 'culer' youth football, allowed him to take the reins of a Primera.
The coach acknowledged that the meeting will be “special”, since he was at the Blaugrana club, as player and coach, for 28 seasons. “The truth is that I don't know how I'm going to feel, but we are preparing it exactly the same as the rest of the games, with the handicap that we may have the ball less than we would like, but we have to be brave, be protagonists, since if we go back we will surely not get anything,” he expressed.
“You have to play a perfect match. For me it is one of the best teams in the world, with a very clear idea for many years. It is a team called to try to win the Champions League, the League, the Copa del Rey and all the competitions.” Let him get in their way. It is true that now the League is very difficult but I am sure that in the end they will be fighting for LaLiga,” the Catalan highlighted in the preview.
Furthermore, he believes that the team and the city of Las Palmas deserve to play and experience these types of games. “I hope it helps us, that it encourages us, that it will surely be like that and that at the end of the game the fans will feel proud of their players. I imagine a game that I hope will be very long, where everyone and We especially have options until the end, and to see if we are capable of achieving a positive result,” he stressed.
The coach of the Canarian team believes that teams that have a high level, like Barça, even if they are in a bad moment “can do harm.” “If we think that because Barça is in the situation we are in, we are going to beat them, we are wrong. We are going to have to play a more than complete game, because they are superior to us, but with personality, with daring, with concentration, with solidarity and being ourselves, I believe that we are going to compete with them,” he added.
“We are going to try to take the ball away from them, because if Barça doesn't have it they suffer and if we don't have it we also suffer, so we feel much more comfortable when we have the ball. It is a team made to have the ball and there are going to be moments that they are going to have it, but the intention is to have it ourselves,” he pointed out.
For García Pimienta, the fact that Julián Araujo, on loan from Barça, cannot play does not depend on him but “I would avoid it.” “If a player goes on loan to a club, let him play and that's it, but since it doesn't depend on us… I feel bad for the boy, because he was also especially excited to play this game, I suppose he also wants to show that he is capable to play there, but well, we can't do anything and another teammate will play and he will do it very well for sure,” he assured.
“About Moleiro, he is very motivated, as it could not be otherwise, it is true that we did not imagine that he would go so fast. He still has the discomfort and runs a little strangely, but we will see in today's training. Little by little He is feeling better little by little and now I dare say that he will be called up,” he noted about his availability.
In the match there will be several reunions, such as those of Sandro and Munir with FC Barcelona, to which García Pimienta assured that they are “players who already have experience and have faced Barça on many occasions.”
“The issue of Pedri is a shame, because I always like that the 25 players that we have in each squad were available for each game. On top of Pedri, who is a player that I really like for his way of playing, on top of that “He is a boy who comes out of here, who surely would have been very excited to play here. It is a shame that unfortunately the injuries are affecting him too much,” he concluded.