Mehdi Nafti: "We want to compete, keep dreaming and make the fans happy"

C.D. Leganés manager, Mehdi Nafti, stopped by the press room on Tuesday to discuss the pepineros' upcoming game on Wednesday at 16:00 (CET) against Real Sociedad in the Estadio Municipal Butarque to determine who will qualify for the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey.

Th coach took the time to confirm both Bruno's and Tarin's absences from the match: "The boys recovering from Covid are all at different stages in terms of their fitness and we will decide this afternoon. We need to share the minutes. There's a very important game this Saturday, but if we have managed to beat Xerez and Cultural it's so that we can continue dreaming of a good cup run, and we will put out a very competitive team against Real".

Nafti assured that it would not be "rotation for rotation's sake, it won't lose its coherency or competitivity, so that we can trouble our rival as much as possible while still keeping Saturday in our heads. We want to compete and make the fans happy. Eliminating Real sería would be surprising, not least for us. We know who we are, but doing our assignments right and with the side we'll field tomorrow, maybe we can cut the difference just a little".

"We know who we are, but doing our assignments right and with the side we'll field tomorrow, maybe we can cut the difference just a little"

The French-Tunisian manager believes that, in the cup, "the most important thing is to get to the next round. Our worst game was in Xerez and no one can agree on why we got through". On Jon Bautista, he confirmed the forward would "start the match tomorrow and we'll try to manage his minutes so he can help us out on the weekend too". 

Lastly, speaking on the last game against Valladolid: "we spoke together yesterday, all of us. We all came to the same conclusions, but 45 minutes won't spoil all the good work that we've done so far. Regardless of the opponent's superiority, the first half performance was still cogent. In that last half an hour there were things I didn't like so much, but we identified them and nothing is ever perfect. We need to get our heads back up and keep going. We've got four full backs out and we're suffering more than we should be. Time to turn a new leaf and look to the future", he concluded.