VITOR PEREIRA’S PRESS CONFERENCE: MAN CITY V WOLVES

You were just saying the weather’s nice, but the whole feeling around the club is good right now with your form. How good is it feeling in camp at the moment?

We are happy. When I look at the faces, I see the happiness. This is a good environment with confidence in the future, and this is what we are building.

Obviously, you are building something, but coming up against a team like Manchester City could cause a big problem. How confident are you going into this game?

Our focus is to compete for the three points. We need to respect ourselves and decide what kind of team we want to be. A good example is our game at Anfield. We must decide if we want to be the team that played the first half, which was, in my opinion, too respectful. Or if we want to be the team that played the second half—with ambition, organization, and character. I prefer the second half.

Are Manchester City a difficult team to prepare for? We all know how brilliant they are, but this season they’ve struggled at times and changed their personnel a lot. Are they really hard to prepare for?

I didn’t prepare anything tactically. We know what we need to do for our game. We face a very strong opponent. Right now, training is about creating competition and happiness. Tactically, we are tired of working tactically. In my opinion, this is not the time to focus on tactics.

What does that say about what you’re doing and how good a place the team’s in, focusing only on yourselves and not worrying about threats?

Yes, because we’re trying to build our identity. Each opponent is different, but we must look for our game. We know how to move, organise, press, and play with the ball in different moments of the game. We do our usual video preparation, looking for spaces to exploit and the strengths we need to control.

Hi Vitor, can you update us on any team news, please?

Small problems, but nothing special. We have one more training session, and I hope everyone is ready to help the team.

When you arrived at the club, you said how much you looked forward to the Premier League. You’ve been to Old Trafford, Anfield, and now Etihad. You must be eager to take on last year’s champions.

This is a special league, in my opinion the best in the world. It’s a pleasure to play at home with our supporters. It’s also a pleasure to play in stadiums I used to watch on TV in the countries I worked before. It’s always been a goal to compete in this kind of environment. It’s special for me.

Have you faced Pep Guardiola in the dugout before?

Yes, once in my career with FC Porto. We won the Europa League, and they won the Champions League. We played in Monaco in the Super Cup final. They won 2-0, with the second goal late in the game. It was a fantastic match and a good experience. 

Hello Vitor. Your team has its identity now, as you said. Manchester City have been a standout team for a long time. They have a lot of possession and are very good. You want your team to play with its identity. Do you have the freedom to adapt against a team like that?

That’s why I say we need to focus on our game. We face different teams with different styles because this is the Premier League. We must use our idea to face each team. We need to understand spaces, movements, and what they want to create. But they also watch us. Our identity comes from the work we’ve done over the last four months and the spirit and mentality.

I’ll mention Liverpool again. In that game, I saw two different teams with two different attitudes. The first half was full of respect—waiting and watching. The second half was different. I saw my team with courage, playing, pressing, and trying to score goals. That’s my personality and what I want from my team. With that experience, and since they’ve just won six games, hopefully, we start strong. It’s human nature. You know what Manchester City are. You might defend more. You try to overcome that. Of course, they will have more possession than us. But I believe we can compete and create chances to score. And we need to defend well.

So when you design the identity and style of play that works against all these different styles, that means the players need the power to make decisions on the field themselves. You are instructing them to do that.

Of course.

Are they finding that confidence now? Do you see that?

Yes, absolutely. That’s what I call tactical maturity. A team with tactical maturity—and players with it—understand the game on the pitch. I am there to help, but the team needs to have a brain to know what’s happening and what to do. I try to prepare them, and I believe we are ready.

Can you train that into players?

Yes, to understand the game. Sometimes we prepare the team to play short and build play short. But if that’s our only option, it becomes a problem. Against teams that press us, we need another solution. We work on different options and prepare for different scenarios. On the pitch, players decide if the space is on the sides, the middle, or if we need a long pass to win the second ball. As a coach, I prepare them for all that. They choose the best option in the moment.

Thank you. Thank you.