Michel and his Olympiacos team are tooling up for what is set to be an historic fixture with Manchester United in the round of 16 first leg of the UEFA Champions League. The manager has just finished off a triumphant year at the Athens club. He is unbeaten in Greece, has already won the double, is well on the way to another, at the same time returning his club to the giddy heights of top class European football. Michel, who is best known for his years as a player at Real Madrid, continues to add kudos to his curriculum vitae. His next challenge is to try to upset the apple cart with the elimination of Manchester United in the next round.
You've been here in Athens for a year now. Are you happy?
I am very happy. We are delighted to be here. I arrived with a set of expectations and these have been surpassed because this is a great club.
You have managed to successfully move Olympiacos onwards and upwards. Are people going crazy about you here?
They treat all of us very well in general and me in particular.
Since you arrived you haven't lost a match in the League or the Cup, you managed to win the double last year and you look to be well on your way to repeating that this year. Is there anything more you can ask for?
We have challenges, of course we do. Last year when we arrived we were on the way to winning the League title but now we are eight points further afield of the second team than we were at this stage of the competition last year, we have scored more goals and I think we have made the team much more competitive in Europe.
We have a match against Manchester United that, under normal conditions, we wouldn't consider ourselves in with a chance with, but we are so thrilled with the opportunity and with the respect we have for them that we really believe we could do something positive, and at least give it our best shot here in front of our home crowd.
The team used to play a lot in the Champions league. In fact one of the reasons for the previous coach's sacking was because you didn't get past the group phase. Have you managed to take some of the pressure off by reaching the round of 16?
Rather than taking the weight off what we've done is add more weight to our trajectory, which is a positive one whichever way you look at it.
Are you convinced you can cause a scare at Manchester United?
I believe so. Perhaps I'm a bit crazy but the same thing happened to us with PSG when they played here in the group phase. At half time we were drawn 1-1 and we ended up losing 1-4 but Blanc in the press conference pointed out that the result held no bearing whatsoever on our performance on the pitch. That
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