C.D Leganés’ defender Roberto Rosales answered the questions sent by the media this Friday. The Venezuelan right back analyzed the return to training and the future return to competition.
Rosales referred to the first week after the return to training: “It has been a different return to activities after a long pause. Even though we have trained at home, it is not the same than being at the pitch. It feels good to be back doing what you love. The job that we have done with our fitness coach has helped to maintain the form, but it is necessary to be at the pitch with your teammates. The longer we have to prepare ourselves the better we will be to compete”, remarked.
“We must be mentally strong for the return to competition”
The right back is happy to be back: “I understand that some of the players may be afraid to be back, but it isn’t my case. Even though we are using many measures for protection, there are some workers that have not had the security as the ones we have. As professionals, we can take some risks as the ones from other industries. It is a situation that can be controlled, a cero contagion rate can’t be secured but we are feeling safe”.
Rosales reviewed the key aspects of returning to competition: “There is a lot of uncertainty right now, but I think we have managed to do thing well as a group during the lockdown. Our physical training has been great. We must be mentally strong for the return to competition. For example, stadiums without public will be something different because as a player you may take it as a training and that would be a mistake”.
“We are focusing right now on our next match against Valladolid”
The Venezuelan player is focused on LaLiga’s return and Leganés first match after the lockdown: “We should continue playing as our last match before the lockdown against Villarreal. We played as a team and put everything on that match against a difficult rival. We are working to be ready for LaLiga’s restart to get as many points as possible, our objective is not far from us. Right now, we are only thinking on out next match against Valladolid at Butarque” remarked.
About the possibility of having more than three substitutions, Rosales thinks that “it is more a prevention measure to control the players’ efforts. Each player knows his role at the team and when you got to play you put your best effort on it. We need to fulfill and as players are focused on seeing it that way”.
“Venezuela’s situation was difficult before the crisis, now it is even more”
At the end, Rosales was questioned about the ongoing crisis on his national team and his country: “Regarding the national team, we have had an occasion that we didn’t meet for about a year and the following year was one of our best. It is a strength that we have, even though we don’t play many matches at Venezuela. The country’s situation makes you to adapt and I don’t think this will affect us from the sport side”.
“From the social perspective, Venezuela’s situation was difficult before this crisis, now it is even more. From outside people can be sure that hospitals will be there for them, even though they can be saturated. But in Venezuela we have more difficulties on that sense”.
