"Why isn’t Lech respected?"

The Friday press conference was marked by the coach’s opinion about the football experts from Canal+ TV channel who were commentating Lech’s recent game. “They struggled to choose which player from our team deserved to be recognized,” explained Bjelica. “That is why after the match against Korona I said that my team played poorly. After all, that’s what the experts said. In addition, during the game with Termalica, the commentators forgot that shortly before facing them, we played 120 minutes in the Polish Cup final,” added the coach.

Bjelica believes that the experts’ comments are caused by the lack of respect for Lech. “So far this season we have won 8 matches with an advantage of at least 3 goals. There is no other team in Ekstraklasa who achieved anything similar. If a team plays poorly, they fail to win with at least 3 goals that often. I know that we did not play perfectly in the offensive against Termalica, but in the defensive we were spotless. Wilusz and Bednarek performed great. However, the commentators chose Tomczyk as the best player of the match even though he spent only a dozen or so minutes on the pitch. I know we live in a democratic state and everybody is allowed to express their opinion, but the football experts should treat Lech with a bit more respect,” explained Bjelica.

The coach himself is happy with the work his players have been doing. “I see it during training sessions. We are a well-organised team, with a good level of aggression and discipline. We don’t play perfect football, but we won against Korona and Termalica, because of the good organization and solid defending. Our best game recently might have been the final against Arka, which we lost. However, that’s football. Barcelona and Real fail to play perfectly as well. Bayern losses once in a while too. I have a team that works very hard on the pitch and that is why I respect them greatly. Why others don’t? I shouldn’t be the one who’s being asked the question, the experts should,” said Nenad Bjelica.

The upcoming match with Pogon initiates another intensive period. Within the next 8 days Lech will play 3 matches. Recently Lech was forced to play 3 times in 10 days. “I have a lot of players at my disposal and each of them will get a chance to play,” explained Bjelica. “We have 3 games to play within a week, therefore, we did not train as intensively as in the first phase of the season. We focused on regeneration and the training sessions were shorter. Kedziora and Kostevych had fewer practices in the past couple of days since we wanted them to rest a bit,” emphasized the coach.

On Sunday his team will have a hard task to complete. Lech will face Pogon Szczecin – a team which has caused Lech’s defense a lot of problems. “They showed what they are capable of. They have quick players and we know that if we are to win, we need to stay very concentrated. Pogon is a good team and they have no pressure. We know what it’s like to play without any pressure; we’ve seen that during the Polish Cup final. Our aim is to win and for that to happen, we need to stay extremely focused,” said Bjelica.