Serial-winner Jose Luis Mendilibar hopes he’ll be heading home to Bilbao this year to Basque in a Euro hat-trick, reports Andy Newport from Greece.
The Olympiacos boss led the Greek giants to their first ever continental title last season as they lifted the Conference League trophy. That triumph came 12 months after the Spaniard had also guided Seville to Europa League glory. Now he’s aiming to notch up a third straight UEFA prize, with this year’s Europa League Final taking place near his Basque County birthplace.
Mendilibar’s former club Athetlic Bilbao will stage the showpiece clash at their San Mames stadium in May and the 63-year-old admits he’d love to be there with the Athens outfit he took over last February. First, they have to get past Philippe Clement’s Rangers but a victory over the Light Blues would leave Olympiacos on the verge of qualifying for the knock-out stage having already beaten league phase rivals Malmo and Braga.
He said: “I think that we play all competitions thinking about week by week or match by match. It is very difficult right now to think about this competition in the final, which is also in my country. We are going to go step by step.
“The first thing is these eight matches. If we qualify, then we will have to see the qualifiers. Now we are thinking about the Rangers, which is the team we are going to face. We only think about it. When we won the Conference League with Olympiacos last season, it was the same.
“As we got there, we thought about every qualifier. The final will be held in [my home] country. We want to advance. We want to be among the teams that will advance to the next phase. This is our first goal.
“We try, as we did last year before winning the Conference League, to think about each game separately and to try to win each game so that we can move forward. This year as well, we will take the games one by one, to be among the teams that will advance to the next phase and to try for the best.”
The Greeks and Rangers have near identical records, sitting on six points having both beaten Swedes Malmo away and lost to Lyon. And Mendilibar reckons the clash at the Karaiskakis Stadium is bound to be another tight affair.
He said: “We have seen the opponent, we have analysed them. We have seen some of their matches in their league and also in the European competitions.
“It is true that we have something in common, which is that in the European competitions they have played against two teams that we have also played, such as Malmo and Lyon. The results have been quite similar. We have won one and lost the other, both teams. We know that it will be a very even match.
“We have to do exactly the same things we did against Braga and against Malmo, play with the same intensity and then we will get the three points. The truth is that we have a specific idea of how to play, a specific style. And this doesn’t change depending on the opponent we have to face.
“But we know very well that the Rangers are a team that plays a lot with through balls and vertical football, as we say. Which means that most likely it will be a bit more difficult for us to go close to their goal and put some threats on them.”
Vaclav Cerny has hit top form for Clement’s team having hit five goals in as many games. And Mendilibar is wary: “I think Rangers are a team that is not about individuals. If someone stands out it is Vaclav Cerny.
“They have some amazing players at the back who help a lot in the build-up and come high, the same applies for the midfielders who can be quite aggressive. It is a very good team not just a sum of good players individually.”