Coaching duo: #CHRWIS

After the match in Głogów, the coaches of both teams met with journalists: Albert Red and Piotr Plewnia. The transcript of the press conference is available below.

Albert Rudé Wisła Kraków

"Summing up today's match is very easy. Our opponents were better than us. They stood up to us from the first to the last minute. When you don't play to the level of competition you need in this league, you lose. It's simple. I have to apologize to the entire club for what we showed," he began. "We need to thoroughly analyze this situation. We're not lacking anything physically, but emotionally. We were losing duels, second balls, offensive and defensive actions. We weren't blocking crosses, we weren't defending the penalty area well. This deepened today and killed us. It has nothing to do with our physicality, it's our mentality. The proof is that when we realized we'd screwed up in the last fifteen minutes, we suddenly started attacking, creating chances. We started winning duels; we were better than them. Why? It's not physicality. Some people think that when Wisła plays the ball, it's enough. "All you need is to play with combinations, get to the penalty area. And that's not enough! It's not enough, and we have to understand that. I'll repeat it again – it's not enough! You have to defend, you have to win duels, you have to fight to get promoted in this league. If you don't do that, you won't get promoted. If we don't understand that, we'll have a problem. I'm not abdicating responsibility, just to be clear. It's our job as a coaching staff to make everyone aware. My job, as captain of this ship, is to be aware of that. I will work hard to improve it," he explained.

During a media briefing, coach Albert Rude indicated that Billel Omrani wasn't yet ready to be included in the starting 20. Meanwhile, the player made his debut in Głogów. Why the change? "The answer is simple, what changed? It's the absence of Baena, who couldn't be in the squad, and we needed another striker, hence Billel's presence," he replied.

What did the White Star coach say to his players at halftime, who, despite their poor performance, were leading against Chrobry? "At halftime, when we were leading 1-0, I told the team that this result was a fluke. It's 1-0, but we didn't deserve to be ahead. I told the guys to give more in the second half. We weren't up to it. Why? We need to analyze it, but I don't think we won a single duel in the first eight minutes of the second half. We'll analyze it and work on the shortcomings in our game. We might stop working on the ball and start practicing more on duels and second balls to be better than our opponent in close situations. The least we have to do is learn from what happened to fix it," he emphasized.

Journalists gathered in the room suggested that Wisła's thoughts were already on Wednesday's Polish Cup clash, a claim denied by the coach: "I don't think we were thinking about the match against Piast, because we didn't talk about it. We didn't say a word about it. Perhaps subconsciously, the players were telling themselves that they had a very important match in midweek and wanted to stay strong for it? But in this league, you can't make calculations! Now I'm just guessing that maybe that was the case, because I don't have the answer. We need to analyze the squad situation for the match against Piast. We need to make the best decisions, because we have a very important match for the entire club ahead of us."

There was also a question about President Jarosław Królewski's post on Platform X, which emphasized that the better team won—mentally, tactically, and physically. The coach replied curtly: "Yes, that's exactly what I said."

Piotr Plewnia - Brave Głogów

"I think everyone in Głogów did well this match. In the stands, on the pitch, off the pitch. We just have to be happy that we're finally attracting a large crowd of our fans. Of course, not every match will be like this, you have to remember that, but we can only be happy that today, in front of such a crowd, we played – let's be honest – a very good match. Both in the first and second half. I'm glad that at halftime, after a difficult moment when we conceded a goal that the referee ended the match, there was a team reaction. The reaction was the same from the first minute. The most important thing is the three points and, above all, executing the plan. We didn't let Wisła spread its wings. We knew we couldn't let them get into the penalty area freely, because Wisła is a very good team that plays really great football, and I'm glad we executed that plan very well. As I said – the three points are the most important thing today. Now we're slowly focusing on Arka Gdynia," he concluded. "The work has been going on since the first day I got here. This confidence is being built gradually. It's not like you can come from the bottom and suddenly change the team in two weeks after losing six games. There's no way. At least I can't. All we're working on is to get as many people as there were in the stands today more often. They'll be drawn to the goals. So I'm happy with the three goals we scored. The question is always, what result does the coach prefer? I prefer a 4-3 result. It's a process. I'm glad this process is going in the right direction and at the right time. The boys believe because they can be involved on the pitch. If someone can run, and we know that's our advantage, then the skills come. And we're gradually extracting these skills from them. We worked primarily on our high defense to prevent Wisła from getting close to our goal, and I think we succeeded very well in many moments. Even in the final minutes, when the goal was scored to make it 3-2, we also tried to shift the emphasis to high defense and we must be satisfied that we managed to do it in a larger time scale," he analyzed.

Chrobry's manager was also asked to comment on President Królewski's post: "It's hard to comment on this in any other way, because that's how the match really played out. It was a very good match. As far as we're concerned, it was probably our best match. A very important aspect is that both halves were at a very high level. I'm happy with the implementation of the tactical tasks, but we still have our place in the table. We want to look as high as possible, but let's be aware that nothing is over yet. There are nine more matches to go and we will do our best. I don't look at the table. It's important in the 34th round. If we lose our minds, it could quickly turn out that we won't be doing as well as we should. We're interested in Arka right now and nothing more," he said.