There’s not much time between matches, only two days. What’s your recovery and preparation plan for the match Crvena Zvezda?
There is no recovery plan, because there is no time to recover. We are preparing for the league season so there is no specific preparation for this match. We will look at the condition of the players, and these matches are an additional to our pre-season work.
Have any other players arrived and rejoined the team?
Barrios will be tomorrow, but he won’t be ready for the game. Only Wendel has not arrived back yet, Rodrigao is recovering, and is on his own training plan and is recovering from injury, but we’re not expecting him to be available in the near future.
Two goalkeepers played against Neftchi, Nikita Goylo and Daniil Odoevskiy, but no Mikhail Kerzhakov. How would you rate the performance of each of the goalkeepers? Could either of them start the season.
We still have two matches to test the water and we’ll give all our goalkeepers an opportunity. We will make a decision a little later about who will start the season. It’s quite difficult to learn much from that match as the ‘keepers didn’t have much work to do. We will look how they do in training as well as they do in matches. We will make our decision on who will be the main goalkeeper in the first league games after we’ve played more matches.
Crvena Zvezda have been the champions of Serbia for the last six years and have played 79 matches without defeat. What do you think about this team and how tough will the match be?
They are a very interesting team and their country’s champions and play in the Champions League. They are on a phenomenal run that’s impressive, they have a new coach who done very well. We are expecting an interesting and difficult match.
Have you spoken to Wendel about his return and when will he return to training?
All conversations are conducted through the club's management and Alexander Medvedev is in touch with the player's representatives and this is run by the club.
Are you expecting him to find a new team and not return, if he returns will he behind in the training process?
We are not worried as we have other players who will be available. Those who are in the best condition will always play, and every player is in control of his own future. We are preparing for the season with the squad we have.
How was Kovalenko’s first training session? How likely is it that we will see him in one of the matches of this tournament?
I hope we will see him. He’s missed quite a lot of matches so it will be quite difficult for him to get up to speed. He is certainly a very talented and promising player and we hope that his fitness levels will allow him to take part in these matches. We are looking for him to get into a good levels of fitness as soon as possible and this will allow him to play against these very good opponents.
