Alisson Becker on Liverpool's UCL clash with AC Milan
16/09/2024
Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, Italy
16/09/2024
Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, Italy
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:30Good evening, first we have Alisson Becker and shortly afterwards we'll have the head
00:47coach Arnaud Slot.
00:48If you could raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question, we'll get through as many
00:52as we can.
00:53Who'd like to go first?
00:54Good evening everyone, tomorrow is a big chance for us to prove again and to go back to the
01:18good start that we had in the season.
01:22Unfortunately, the last match we were far, far away from what we could do on the pitch
01:32in respect of the other games, the way we played, and we know that.
01:37But football is quick and we have to be really focused for tomorrow night.
01:44It will be a really tough opponent that we're going to play against and we have to be ready.
01:50Hi Alisson, I'm Francesco Rocchi from Bright Sport.
01:59Welcome again to Italy.
02:01I'd like to ask you about your feelings, what feelings you have coming back here to Italy
02:06and to San Siro specifically in a game against Milan.
02:10Hi, it's always a pleasure to me coming back to this country.
02:19I also come back here on holidays with my family.
02:22It's always a lovely and special place to be.
02:25I always repeat the same, I love Italy.
02:28But tomorrow will be a tough game for us.
02:36Before us there is a great team, a huge club, a historic club.
02:42We know that because we know the history of football.
02:45We know that when these two teams, Liverpool and AC Milan,
02:48they always compete in great finals and matches.
02:52There have been a couple of them in the year 2000.
02:57So for us it's a pleasure, a full pleasure to play in a game like this tomorrow.
03:07We are ready to fight to get our targets.
03:12Hi Alisson and welcome back to Italy.
03:15I'm talking from Corriere dello Sport.
03:17Tomorrow will be also a competition between you, one of the best goalkeepers worldwide,
03:23and Magnan, another wonderful goalkeeper.
03:26What do you think about Mike Magnan and how do you classify him in the global standing?
03:33Mike Magnan is a great goalkeeper.
03:39He's doing incredibly well.
03:43And he has been doing so for 3, 4, 5 years.
03:47Since he came here to Milan he has always played wonderfully
03:51and also with the French national team.
03:55He has replaced a wonderful, a great goalkeeper who has been a world champion.
04:05He is doing great.
04:06Every time he goes to the pitch he plays very well.
04:09He is a very physical player, he is quick, he has technical skills.
04:13He is a very clean player.
04:17He is a very good goalkeeper.
04:20He is one of the 10 best players worldwide.
04:25In terms of quality as a goalkeeper he has advanced a lot.
04:30There are so many good goalkeepers but he is one of the best.
04:34I would like to ask you whether for you the atmosphere here in San Siro tomorrow
04:43made of huge supporters, a huge support,
04:47will it be a concern for you the fact that there will be a very warm environment with AC Milan supporters?
04:56Well, if you play at a high level like us, like we do,
05:01you need to like these kind of settings, these kind of atmospheres,
05:05with supporters supporting you or going against you.
05:10I'm sure that it will be a good occasion,
05:14a wonderful opportunity to play football before thousands of people,
05:18thousands of AC Milan supporters.
05:21We are happy about this opportunity
05:24and at the same time we need to be ready to do our best.
05:32If we really want to win this game we need to do our very best
05:37because we have a wonderful team ahead of us.
05:40Italian football is always tough.
05:46It's always a problem for English teams to play versus Italian rivals.
05:52So we need to be ready.
05:53What do you make of the new Champions League format generally?
05:57There are a lot more games.
05:59Does that make it tougher?
06:00How demanding is that on players?
06:02And also I wonder what you make of Liverpool's chances generally
06:07as potential Champions League winners this season?
06:09Can you do that?
06:11I think for the supporters it's amazing.
06:17More games, bigger games, big teams playing against each other.
06:24For us players as well it's a good thing
06:28that you are going to play against the best in Europe.
06:33It's always a good idea to add some games to the calendar
06:38that is not busy.
06:43I'm being ironic a little bit.
06:47But again we are here to do our job.
06:52Sometimes nobody asks the players what they think about adding more games.
06:59So maybe our opinion doesn't matter.
07:02But everybody knows what we think about that, having more games.
07:08Everybody is tired of that.
07:11But we have to bring those kind of things on side
07:16and stay focused on the big challenge that we have here tomorrow.
07:21And if we have a chance, let's see what we are going to do on the pitch.
07:28A lot has changed from the last years for us.
07:32We didn't play the Champions League last season.
07:35And we are all looking forward to that, to be back to the Champions League.
07:40And we are going to do our best to try to win.
07:49Hi Alisson, Michael Cuomo from Tele Lombardia.
07:52Could you please tell us how Federico Chiesa arrived?
07:58What was his arrival like?
08:02Are you seeing him? How do you find him?
08:09I don't need to give you any introduction of Federico Chiesa
08:13because he is a wonderful football player.
08:15You perfectly know him, much better than we do.
08:23In the past years he has given proof of his quality.
08:29He got injured, he had some ups and downs.
08:34Lately he had some bad periods.
08:38But the way he landed in Liverpool was extremely positive to me.
08:44I think that he arrived to our squad with a great smile,
08:48a huge smile painted on his face.
08:51Everybody is enthusiastic about Federico.
08:56And he is extremely happy about having this chance of playing in our squad.
09:03His quality, he shows it every time, every day.
09:09We are lucky to count on him.
09:14He is a top level player who can help our team.
09:20Good afternoon Alisson, I am Luca Savarese from Radio Cross.
09:24Being a goalkeeper gives you the chance to have a privileged look on the whole pitch.
09:30So what is Mr. Zlot doing for the team and for the tactics?
09:34Mr. Zlot has contributed with several positive things.
09:40Obviously all the players who have worked for a long time with Mr. Klopp
09:48will remember what he told us.
09:50So our characteristics will be influenced by Jurgen Klopp also in the future.
09:55But Zlot has arrived with a great enthusiasm, with new ideas regarding football.
10:01Actually his new ideas are not that different from what we did in the past.
10:06But still Mr. Zlot loves to make bold possessions.
10:10He loves to create occasions, starting in the defence,
10:16starting from the very goalkeeper, starting from myself,
10:19till arriving to the other pitch, to the other goal.
10:23And this will give us chances.
10:26I think that we like this thing of making bold possessions, of making passes.
10:36We like to play close to each other.
10:38We like the movements Mr. Zlot wants us to make.
10:43And he also gives us freedom to be whatever player we like to be.
10:48He works a lot on his staff and his staff works a lot as well.
10:54So I think that with Mr. Zlot's arrival we have all been very enthusiastic
11:03and we rely on the fact that we can do a good job this season.
11:07Does not being in the Champions League last year make you appreciate it even more?
11:12Do you feel as though you and your team-mates and the club as a whole belong in this competition?
11:17Yes. Imagine something that you really like to do and you stay without doing it for one year.
11:27How looking forward you would be for doing that thing again.
11:33So that's the way we feel.
11:35Playing in the Champions League was one of the reasons that I came here in Europe from Brazil.
11:44So not being able to play last season was really hard.
11:50But here we are again after a really good season of us qualifying for the Champions League
11:58in a really difficult league that is the Premier League.
12:01So we are looking forward to that for this beginning.
12:09Hi, my name is Maurizio Cardoni from Radio Latte Miele.
12:13Tomorrow you are going to face a rival that hasn't started that well.
12:18Not in a linear way, not very well in the first games,
12:23then a net victory, a net winning against Venice last weekend.
12:30Have you studied this new rival? Is there something that impacts you with this new AC Milan?
12:37We have always been impressed by the high quality of this squad.
12:45You cannot just take a look at the last results because the quality of AC Milan is there.
12:54It's still there and the quality of its players too.
12:57We know that tomorrow will be a wholly different game.
13:00It's a Champions League game.
13:02There will be the full motivation of players, of supporters.
13:06So it will be a completely different story.
13:09Tomorrow the situation will be very much different from what we have studied so far regarding AC Milan.
13:16We are focused on what we need to do, on our tactics, on our strategy, on the pitch and that's it.
13:27We really want to do a great job tomorrow.
13:30We want to perform greatly, not like we did against Nottingham Forest.
13:37Tomorrow we will have the chance to prove that we are still standing
13:41and we want to start this competition very well.
13:45Just to follow up on player welfare and the volume of games,
13:50you say no one asks the players.
13:52What do you think is the appropriate amount of football for a top player to be playing in a season?
13:59Is it 50 games? Is it 40 games?
14:01What competitions would you drop from the calendar to make more room?
14:10I think this is not only a question that I should answer here.
14:15The number is 30 or the number is 40.
14:18But it's a matter to sit down all together and listen to all the parts.
14:22Because we understand that we have the side of the media, from TV,
14:28we have the side from the UEFA, from the FIFA, from the Premier League,
14:32from the domestic competitions.
14:35We are not stupid, we understand that.
14:39And we understand that people want games, people want more games.
14:44But the reasonable thing would be all the sides that I mentioned,
14:51all the people who are responsible for making the calendar,
14:55organizing the calendar, to sit together and to listen to all the parts,
15:02including the players.
15:04I think so many players have spoken already about that.
15:13We just need to be listened.
15:16And that's what we would like to do, to sit together and to understand
15:23what is the thinking of the directions that football wants to go.
15:28And not only adding games, adding competition, adding this, adding that.
15:33At the end, what we want is giving our best for the football.
15:42If you are tired, you cannot compete in a high level.
15:46What I want is giving my best in all the games that I play.
15:50But we need a solution for that, and it doesn't look like we are close
15:56to a good solution for the football's sake and for the players' sake.