The Basconia of Patxi Salinas will play the semifinal of the playoff promotion to Second B this Saturday against Portugalete (19:30) in Sarriena. The black and white team is convinced of its possibilities and confident of making the double with Bilbao Athletic. That the puppies also go up and leave their place one category higher.
Patxi Salinas He comments that “we are aware that we first have to win our match and then wait for Bilbao Athletic to win theirs against Badajoz. But we have to worry about ours, although we are confident that Bilbao Athletic will happen. He has had a splendid season, magnificent, wonderful, he arrives in brutal conditions to face the play off. We believe it will happen and we will try to do the same ”.
Speaking of the key to the encounter with the jarrilleros, the coach from Gualdinegro says that “our play off is a little different from the others, if we tied we are not worth it, the Portugalete would pass. We have to win, there is no overtime or penalties and it conditions us a little. They have been the best team of the season, it has been first on its own merits, it is solid, hard, veteran, with experience … But we can beat them, in the League we already beat them 0-2 in Florida and in Artunduaga we tied one . We have good numbers with them, it gives us confidence. We are ready, the team has had a fantastic mini-season, we arrived in very good condition, we are going to be very optimistic, we are going for all of them ”.
Salinas Regarding the format and knowledge of the rival, he points out that “he would have preferred to play back and forth and that we would have played with another group. We would have more options to demonstrate the potential in two games than in one. We could even have uploaded more than one. Here we all know each other well, we have faced each other, we see each other every week … Players, systems, game models, strategy … We have seen them. It will benefit and harm us 50%, we all have information. It is what there is, what touches us. We know Portu and they know us, I don't know where the key may be because we don't know how we are going to get there. Some say that since we are younger we will get better, hopefully. I don't know how Portu trained. I know how we are, frankly well, the boys have a lot of morale, they have had a brutal season. They deserve to play the playoff and if possible we'd love to move up. We are going to try it, another thing is that we succeed. For our part we are going to put everything and more to try to achieve victory on Saturday ”.
Regarding the state of his players, he recalls that “we have had the serious injury of Diliberto who said goodbye to the season in November or December. Azkona, practically the same. They are already with the group training well, but they are seven months without competing … It is possible that they will go with us if we see them in conditions from here to Saturday and they can play a few minutes. It killed us during the season not to be able to count on them, they are already recovered but I don't know if they get a tad fair. There are no setbacks. ”