“How do you keep Nico Williams?” a journalist asks Ernesto Valverde. The technician smiles and answers: “Ask him, he’s there.” Indeed, the MVP of the game was waiting his turn to speak. “We love him, we love him very much.” Then he responds about what he feels: “It’s wonderful, it was once again a close match with Mallorca, very complicated. I know what it’s like to lose on penalties, so I understand that they will be very screwed”, and he elaborates: “I celebrate it for those who have come here, for what they have been in Bilbao, or anywhere else. We are happy for them.”
According to Valverde, it was complicated, because, “they took advantage of aerial duels, we didn’t just get into the game. Then things went better for us, Oihan’s goal made us see that we had the final there. Then in the end we were all melted. Then the penalties, we had been preparing them all week, also with Julen, I am very happy for him.”
He points out that, “what this victory means for the club is the same as what it means for the fans. Nobody escapes what Athletic is, we are all Athletic. Then, the players are there and we are here to help them. The players are very important, they are the architects.
At the moment the team is in for a good celebration. Then one, which is always me, will bring them down to earth.” Valverde confessed that, “this title has no comparison with any other I have won. In other clubs I had the obligation to win. “I knew it before, but I was reluctant to say it, but this has no comparison to anything.”
Javier Aguirre, serene, calm, despite the defeat, appeared in the La Cartuja press room, “with the feeling of all Mallorcanism. He is cruel. The other time he came up heads, and this time tails. “It was swimming and swimming to die on the shore.” He noted that his message to the players was one of gratitude. “I didn’t go in the locker room, but on the field I told them to hold their heads high, that we are a family,” and he alluded to the penalty lottery. “In itself it is a technical gesture, but it is also an emotional gesture. There is nothing to reproach, because we even rehearsed them.”
The Mallorca coach said that he turns the page immediately, and does not think about a possible renewal. “Now I am focused on the League, Madrid is coming on Saturday. “I don’t have time to think about anything else.” Nor in the losses: “I have 24 players and all of them, without exception, are very connected. “Nobody’s absence is noticeable.”
Aguirre explained why Mallorca came out stronger, and that, “with Darder we were looking to have the ball, and they have improved a lot without it. I had that doubt beforehand. We did well in part, they made it difficult for us, then I had to change because they always had one more in the center of the field.”
The Mallorca coach confessed that, “as an individual I have many more battles lost than won, but my whole family was there and I suffer for them. I’m fine and tomorrow I’ll start thinking about Madrid. There was no happy ending, I congratulated Txingurri and little else, and I congratulated the fans. I want to tell you that we sold the defeat dearly.”
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