'Vertical football' - Olympiacos boss has say on Rangers' style of play and singles out his Ibrox standout

Jose Luis Mendilibar revealed his Olympiacos side will look to pile on the pressure against Rangers on Thursday night.

The Greek outfit, who are reigning Conference League champions, have six points from nine in the revamped Europa League so far, the same as the Light Blues. Coincidentally, both sides have beaten Swedish side Malmo away and lost to French outfit Lyon ahead of their meeting in the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium. Speaking through an interpreter, boss Mendilibar, who also won the Europa League with Sevilla in 2023, insists his side will change nothing in their search for three points against Philippe Clement’s side.

He said: “The truth is we have a specific idea of how to play, a specific style. This doesn’t change depending on the opponent we have to face. Tomorrow, we’re going to have a different opponent, of course, and we will try to play the same way, add some pressure high on them, and we’ll try to be close to their goal.

“But we know very well, Rangers is a team that plays a lot with through balls and vertical football, as we say, which means that most likely it will be a bit more difficult for us to go close to their goal and put some pressure on that.

“The important thing is that we pile that pressure up high and give them a hard time. We have seen the opponent, we have analysed them. We have seen some of their matches in their league and also in the European competitions.

“It is true that we have something in common, which is that in the European competition they have played against two teams that we have also played, Malmo and Lyon.

“The results have been quite similar. We have won one and lost the other, both teams. We know that it will be a very even match. We have the same wins, we have the same points. Both teams are here to win the match.”

Mendilibar selected winger Vaclav Cerny, who has scored five goals in his last five games, as the pick of the Rangers squad.

“Rangers are a team, their strength relies, in the fact that they are a team,” he said. “If I could have someone standing out that would be perhaps, Cerny. Of course, they have some amazing full-backs to build up (play), and they come up high. The same applies with the midfielders who can be quite aggressive sometimes.

“It is a very good team, not just a sum of good players individually.”

Spaniard Mendilibar had a message for the fellow countrymen and women who were affected by the historic floods in Valencia.

He said: “It is extremely sad, that has made us feel really bad, and actually it’s inconceivable, given the fact that we have all these tools and means in order to avoid this kind of disasters, but it happened so quickly, it was so catastrophic.

“And there are some things we cannot correct, we cannot fix, so we cannot bring the dead back. What we can hope for and wish for is for the people who are currently in pain to find the strength and recover. And of course, we are here, we’re standing by their side, and we’re ready to help them in order to recover even more speedily.”