It was a loss for Hammarby away in the first match against FK Cukaricki in the Europa Conference League with 1-3. When Hammarby’s coach Milos Milojevic looks back on the match in Belgrade, both he and the players feel that the team had significantly more to offer.
– We are one hundred percent right about what we did well and wrong in the first match. If we reach the right level, we can win the match at home. But we can not have such a bad match again as in Serbia, that is the starting point, says Milojevic and continues.
“Made them a little better”
– All the guys in the team are hungry for revenge and I do not have to motivate the players extra. Everyone is positive and the performance last time against IFK Gothenburg was good. We are on the right track and what we need to work on a bit is to become more effective in the offensive penalty area.
How good is Cukaricki with your experience in Serbian football?
– They are good at what they do with their adjustments. We made them a little better than they were for simple mistakes. We have to play past their first press. Cukaricki is not good if we play behind them, both midfielders are a little worse and I think we have more strength on our artificial turf than their natural turf. We must try to find a balance.
– Cukaricki is good and plays together as a team, it is a team that is top four for the last four or five years in Serbia, which is a good result when you look at the top teams in Serbia that have a bigger budget.
Advantage of the substrate
Hammarby’s team captain Jeppe Andersen:
– Cukaricki is a good team, absolutely, but the feeling in the first match was that we did not get up to level. We made Cukaricki look better than they really are. At Tele 2 we are better than away and I absolutely believe that we can win the return.
Milojevic also believes that the data may play a role. The Hammarby coach was assistant coach at Röda Stjärnan for two years and believes that the Serbian teams generally do not like playing on artificial turf.
– I do not know exactly how all Serbian players reason. But when I was in Röda Stjärnan, I got the impression that Serbian players do not like to play on artificial turf. They whine, complain and say they have back and back pain. They do not like it. However, Cukaricki made a good match against Molde two years ago and you have to take that with you. We can not count on winning just because of the surface, but all parts of our game must be good.
