Alessio Lisci: “It’s a Deserved Defeat”  

Osasuna head coach Alessio Lisci spoke to the media in the postgame press conference following his team’s 3-1 loss to Real Sociedad at Anoeta.

“It’s obviously a deserved defeat,” Lisci said. “In the first half we started well — we had [forward] Víctor’s [Muñoz] shot off the post and [defender Valentín] Rosier’s attempt — but from [forward Mikel] Oyarzabal’s chance onward we basically disappeared from the game. Against Real Sociedad, who press man-to-man, when they force you to play long you have to win the first or second ball. If you lose all the first balls and all the second balls, you can’t have any continuity in the match.”

“Physically they were superior to us, there’s no debate about that, because all their chances came in transition after winning the second ball or when we tried to attack the space behind them, like in the penalty,” he added. “There’s one situation that is very clear. In a first half where we deserved to be behind, there was a very clear penalty that wasn’t given. If the first half ends 2-1 — without us deserving it, I repeat — maybe the second half would have been different.”

“I think we were better in the second half. By adding another midfielder we were able to create doubts for them in their matchups and we had more continuity, managing to push them back into a low block more often. The third goal disrupted us, because if we had managed to make it 2-1 it could have been different. But overall it was a poor game and we have to get back up quickly because another very difficult match is coming this weekend.”

Asked about the team’s recent results, Lisci said he does not believe complacency is the issue.

“I don’t think it’s relaxation. It’s difficult to get inside the players’ heads, but we’re all focused on wanting to do more. That’s why we’re also trying to motivate them, trying to look higher up the table if we can break away definitively so this doesn’t happen,” he said. “I wouldn’t put it down to a lack of concentration. Of course we’ll have to analyze everything, but in terms of results we’ve clearly entered a negative run.”

Lisci added that the defeat “should not hurt us too much.”

“It’s a bad game — probably at the same level as the one against Real Betis this season — where we were out of the match,” he said. “But it shouldn’t hurt us too much. It’s normal for a bad run to happen again because football is like that; not everything is linear. We already have the points from last season, when the team fought for Europe until the final week. We have to try to learn from this, but not make it overly dramatic because that wouldn’t help us at all.”