Lazio Coach Stefano Pioli says Sparta Prague “play good football” but “they have weaknesses”.
The Biancocelesti are in the Czech Republic for the first leg of their Europa League Last 16 tie, taking on the Rudí tomorrow night.
“I’m expecting a difficult opponent, who are unbeaten in the Europa League and play good football,” Pioli told reporters in his pre-match Press conference.
“But, like all teams, they have weaknesses and we’ll have to do well to exploit them.
Lazio Coach Stefano Pioli says Sparta Prague “play good football” but “they have weaknesses”.
The Biancocelesti are in the Czech Republic for the first leg of their Europa League Last 16 tie, taking on the Rudí tomorrow night.
“I’m expecting a difficult opponent, who are unbeaten in the Europa League and play good football,” Pioli told reporters in his pre-match Press conference.
“But, like all teams, they have weaknesses and we’ll have to do well to exploit them.
“Zdeněk Ščasný says his side will be aggressive? In Europe you won’t get far without intensity, we’ll respond with the same weapons.
“We expect it from our opponent, Galatasaray also tried to do that in the first leg. We’ll have to do well tomorrow night.
“We respect our opponents, we know them, but we have to focus on our own game tomorrow night. It’ll be a tight game, we want to emerge on top over the 180 minutes.
“I think the attitudes of Sparta and Galatasaray are different. Sparta are compact, they’re good in both phases and adapt to the game well.
“We’ll have to go out there with intelligence, clarity, rhythm and intensity.”
The Czechs have scored in all of their away games in the tournament so far, does that make it doubly important to score an away goal tomorrow?
“Of course, clearly in a two-legged tie it’ll be important to take an important result home with us. They’ve scored a lot of away goals, and if they’ve got to this stage undefeated it means they have values.
“We have to be at it for 95 minutes, trying to win the match from beginning to end.”