A look back at the semi-finals in the Champions League. The twinkling eyes of Slot when he talks about Guardiola. A steaming Kuip for Feyenoord-Olympique Marseille. Dealing with pressure at very large competitions and Erik ten Hag’s Zoom model. Etienne Verhoeff discusses it in a new AD Voetbalpodcast with Sjoerd Mossou.
Liverpool beat Villareal 2-0 in the first semi-final. No big problems for Klopp’s team. And less exciting than Tuesday’s game. “You know in advance that Liverpool-Villareal can never be as beautiful as City-Real Madrid. Villarreal was clearly the underdog. You can hardly imagine that the Spaniards could cause a stunt at Anfield. They were mainly concerned with staying in the diptych’, Mossou considers that game.
After that, the focus is on Feyenoord in the AD Voetbalpodcast. The semi-final against Olympique Marseille. ‘You can feel the tension in Rotterdam. They only care about one thing: the competition. You will also see it in the press room on Wednesday. Arne Slot suddenly found himself in front of a battery of cameras. The international press is out. Then you also get the whole play around such a match with training sessions in the stadium a day in advance. That gives extra weight to such a duel. You get a Champions League feeling even if it’s Conference League.’
Feyenoord feels that there is something to be gained against Marseille. ‘The difference between Olympique Marseille and Feyenoord is, among other things, the experience in European tournaments and this final phase. The French have that much more than Feyenoord. Moreover, they are not impressed by a steaming Kuip. As one of the few teams. Because the atmosphere in that Stade Vélodrome is at least the same. Maybe squared.’
Listen to the entire Voetbalpodcast now via AD.nl, the AD App or your favorite podcast platform.
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