Kenneth Perez and Ronald de Boer react quite astonished after the elimination of PSV in the Europa League. The analysts of ESPN are surprised that Roger Schmidt did not use a single substitution to secure the 2-0 lead against Olympiacos. The PSV trainer only brought two fresh forces after Koka’s 2-1 in the ninetieth minute. “Shoot me a leak”, De Boer opens his analysis afterwards.
“I really don’t understand at all what Roger Schmidt was doing here”, De Boer continues. “Always changing, and now he waited to intervene. You could see that some were completely gone: Ryan Thomas, Olivier Boscagli, and even Donyell Malen. In the end he waited until the ninetieth minute to intervene, but then that ball was already in there. . ” Only after Olympiakos’ 2-1 did Mauro Júnior and Yorbe Vertessen fill in for Thomas and Mario Götze. Due to the 4-2 loss in Greece, that score was not enough for PSV.
In response, Perez draws a painful conclusion about PSV. “Apparently a lot of PSV players cannot play ninety minutes. Is it precisely because of the substitution policy that they cannot play an entire game? Or does he change so much because he knows that they cannot play an entire game? And then he can be very angry. when you ask questions about the fitness of the players. But this is shocking, right? You just saw three, four players who really ran their tongue on their shoes. Perez states that Boscagli was too tired to avoid the goal against. “He just can’t go with his man. Just not enough pressure on the ball …”
The lack of substitutions leads to extra surprise at De Boer, because Schmidt regularly takes his most important players to the side early this season to give them a rest. “It’s so weird that you always use your substitutions in the 70th minute. And now you really just see that they are completely broken, and then you just refuse to change. Then you can say: it was not the right time to change. because that goal just fell, but he could have changed before that. I think this is a very weak moment for Schmidt. “
Roger Schmidt’s response to the criticism
Schmidt was logically asked afterwards about the absence of changes. “I think my players have done well”, the German said opposite ESPN. “All the players were in the game well, also how they worked together on the field, which went well. Of course they were a bit tired, but they were still able to control the game, even defensively. My feeling. was that it was good to leave these players on the field as long as possible. “