In a blistering Kuip, Feyenoord will meet Olympique Marseille in the semifinals of the Conference League tomorrow. According to Arne Slot, the Rotterdam team will not lose its head soon. Not even himself: ,,I will not soon let myself go like that against Slavia.”
By Sjoerd Mossou
For days, Rotterdam has been looking forward to Thursday evening’s match against Olympique Marseille, in the semifinals of the Conference League. De Kuip will sizzle and roar, trainer Arne Slot expects.
,,That will be another great experience, hopefully within the standards set by UEFA”, said Slot. ,,As a team, it’s up to us to have good interaction with the audience after kick-off. So that it really becomes an interaction, as we have often had this season.”
In the quarterfinals against Slavia Prague (3-3) this sometimes also led to apparent unrest at Feyenoord, both on the field and on the sidelines. Assistant coach Marino Pusic received a red card, trainer Slot let himself go with the most furious gestures. ,,I have dealt with injustice in different ways this season”, said the Feyenoord coach. ,,Against Ajax I remained very calm in Amsterdam, at home against Slavia I may have gone a bit too far in my emotions. At least: I’ve noticed that people prefer to see the first version of me.”
Did Slot learn something from it? ,,The chance that I let myself go like this again seems small”, said Slot. ,,You can say in both cases that it has had no effect, at least not on the referee’s decisions. It is not always easy for trainers to deal with injustice, not even for me. And sometimes it also has a function: we did turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead against Slavia. I don’t want to suggest a direct connection with my behavior on the sidelines, but sometimes you try to influence players or the game in a certain way.”
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