Diego Martínez: “Today, the Estadio Gran Canaria played alongside the team — they were the twelfth man”
The UD Las Palmas coach emphasized: "Very happy for the fans and the players. The players always believed. It was a very balanced match at the beginning — it's very hard to create clear chances against a team like Atlético."
Diego Martínez spoke after the victory at the Estadio Gran Canaria and said: “The team believed in the game plan and executed it well. Sometimes things go your way, and today they really did. From a tactical perspective, it was a beautiful game for the coaches.”
Here are some of his other remarks:
"To reach this moment in this way really validates all the obstacles and negativity that surrounded the team. But this isn’t over — there are still many matches and many points to be played for."
"The team has known how to keep going, because it was never down. It always kept moving forward."
"The assist should go to Mata for believing in that play. To be able to reach moments like that, you have to stay solid throughout the match, and I think the team was tactically excellent. We managed to make the opponent uncomfortable."
"What matters is being out of the relegation zone on matchday 38. That said, we came into this game with 3 points and now have 32 — 8 wins. When you look up the table, you see teams with more points, and maybe the difference is in the number of draws, not wins — and that should give us confidence. There’s still a long way to go, and difficult moments will come in these next six matches."