“I hope that the lack of supporters will be a disadvantage for them and we will be able to take advantage” – Glasul Aradului

The “red lantern” FC Botoşani ended last week’s streak of seven matches without a win, with the 2-1 success achieved at home against Politehnica Iasi. Even if they still occupy the last place, the Botošanians are back in the fight for direct maintenance, being at this moment only three points behind FC Voluntari, who occupy the 12th place.

On Friday, from 17:30, the formation coached by Bogdan Andone will play in Arad against UTA, and the technician anticipated the match: “It will be a difficult game for sure, because, we know very well, UTA is an extremely strong team, especially at home, I hope that the lack of supporters will be a disadvantage for them and we can take advantage of this. But the most important thing is for us as a team to be focused, motivated and 100% ready at game time to play a consistent game and manage to come back with a positive result. UTA is very offensive at home games, it has very good quality players in the offensive phase, from midfield up they have a lot of solutions, doubles in positions. At home they scored four goals and I think they could have scored at least two or three more goals in the match against Voluntari, at U Cluj they played a more defensive game, they didn’t create many situations, they really lacked two players attack, Luckassen and Micovschi, extremely important for their game. We will see what will happen, I hope we manage to block them, not to give them chances to create many scoring situations and in turn to take advantage of their weak points”

In the regular season, both direct matches between the two teams ended in a draw, 2-2, and each time UTA equalized in extra time, even though they were outnumbered: “If we look at it, we have a rematch after both regular season games because we were tied in overtime in both games. But it’s not about revenge, it’s about concentration, more attention and being more pragmatic in the final moments of the game, because there are important points lost or, maybe in our case, we will need luck on offensive phase to win in overtime. We have to be focused, we have to be the most determined and maybe we can score a three-point goal now in overtime” the 49-year-old coach said.

Andone has met UTA seven times in his coaching career, with six different teams, Olimpia Satu Mare, Politehnica Timișoara, Metaloglobus Bucharest, Energeticianul (currently Viitorul Pandurii Târgu Jiu), FC Voluntari and FC Botoșani, and his record is two victories, two draws and three defeats.

PHOTO: catch FC Botoșani (youtube)