The head coach of Chelsea, Enzo Maresca, admitted that he could have “a little worried” on Thursday in the semi -finals of the Conference League on the harmful effects of DJURGARDEN’s artificial pitch.
The blues trips to Sweden to face one side that is currently in the Swedish upper flight with 11th place. Maresca’s team was largely at risk in the third competition in Europe this season and implemented nine consecutive victories before surprisingly lost to Legia Warsaw in the quarterfinals in the second leg.
While he recognized the danger of slipping back into complacency, Maresca’s main care was the artificial pitch. “It can certainly be a problem,” admitted the oppressor-Schelsea boss. “I’m a little worried about it. But we are not at a moment when we can say that we save the players for Sunday. This is a semi -finals, it is a European competition and we want to be in the final.
“It’s completely different [playing on an artificial pitch]. I know that in the past few weeks some of their players have even complained about the field. They play every week, so it is different for us.
“But there are no excuses, no reasons why we won’t compete tomorrow and the second game.”
Djurgard manager Jani Honkavaara is also not a fan of the “terrible” pitch. “It is really difficult for both us and our opponents. We don’t get anything from it,” he sighed in April. The Norwegian wing player -Tokmac Nguen added: “The ball slips away from her foot all the time. When deciding on situations in which you decided what it should suddenly do, the ball moved without reason. We told the club that something had to be done.”
The striker August of the club, August Priseke, named it as “S **** y” after the quarterfinals of the Conference League.
Chelseas Pedro Neto struck a more optimistic tone: “To be honest when I was younger in Portugal, I played on these parking spaces. I even sometimes played on the sand! Of course I haven’t played in a long time, but we will be training and prepared for tomorrow.”