Mariusz Jop after #WISWPŁ: Next, everything depends on us

Friday, May 2nd, didn't bring three points to Mariusz Jop's team. Despite a single goal for the White Star, it was the namesake from Płock who secured all three points. The Wisła Kraków coach assessed the match at a press conference.

"It was an unpleasant evening. A painful defeat to Płock in a match that we thought we shouldn't have lost, but we did. But unfortunately, sometimes that's how it is in football, you lose games like that. I think the most important thing now for the team is to quickly recover from this, because from then on, everything depends on us," he concluded.

You're entering a crucial phase of the season, where every match could decide your promotion. Don't you think it's time for individual conversations with the players to address their mistakes and encourage them to make consistent decisions on the pitch? "Yes, I agree that these are simple mistakes that later impact the result. However, I don't think any of the players here were dismissive or mentally unprepared for this. These goals are certainly very costly, these mistakes are very costly, especially if they're made by defenders or the goalkeeper. As I said, you have to support the players because they feel they've made a mistake. There's no need to point out the mistake and come back at them forcefully, because sometimes in a footballer's life, such mistakes happen. As I said at the beginning, you have to clear your head quickly, everyone has to prepare well for the next match, and as I said before, from then on, everything depends on us," he replied.

Wisła Kraków started the first half perfectly. Angel Rodado opened the scoring, 30,000 fans were in attendance, and yet you went into the locker room at halftime down two goals due to defensive errors. What goes through a coach's mind when he walks into the locker room at halftime? "I don't think it's entirely true that Patryk Letkiewicz made a mistake, because there were several mistakes. Someone let in a cross, someone didn't cover the situation. "One-on-one in the penalty area. Ultimately, of course, Patryk could have done better there. I think what can be said is that we should continue our play in terms of building attacks, because we were definitely the dominant side. We created chances, there were a lot of set pieces, and we had chances after them. Sometimes it happens that the more creative team plays more in positional attack, creates more chances, creates more, and takes more shots. In all these statistics, they are better, but in the most important statistics, they are weaker, and today was a match that is very painful for us because of that," he assessed.

After a long break, Joseph Colley returned to the squad, but Wiktor Biedrzycki and Mariusz Kutwa were absent. What were the reasons for these absences? “Mariusz and Wiktor’s absence was due to health issues,” he said.

Did you think about bringing in Marko Poletanović from the first minute? "I thought about it, but for the match against Płock I decided on a different solution," he replied.

This is yet another poor save by Patryk Letkiewicz in goal, resulting in the opponent scoring. Given that Patryk is a young goalkeeper, might it be more difficult for him to get back on track and be more effective at guarding the net? "Of course it is like that and these unsuccessful interventions make the player lose confidence, it is natural, but we will observe how not only he, but also other players will perform in throughout the week and of course, I don't rule out that there will be a change in this position, just like there may be in other positions, but despite everything, he will definitely have support from me and the entire team, just like any other player who played, for better or for worse. We are a team and we have been together many times We won and now we lost together. Not just one player," he said.

What is the reason for the fact that Wisła has been playing in the 1st league for three years and has not been able to beat teams from the top of the table for three years? "I wouldn't want to attempt such a broad analysis here. I'd have to look at the statistics and see. These were different teams, different coaches. I wouldn't look for any analogies here," he concluded.