FC Olympique 13 take on Europa Point at Victoria Stadium tomorrow with a 6.15pm kick off. A tough match is expected against Europa who are just 1 point ahead of Olympique FC in the second Division after winning one game and drawing the other.
Earlier today we spoke to manager Lewis Glen Fraser and defender Scott Ritchie ahead of the exciting clash tomorrow.
Lewis, a difficult result to take last week, what did you think of the performance?
L: The result was simply not good enough, we have higher standards than that and it just didn’t work out on the day. We were far from our best but the players cant be faulted for effort, there were a lot of changes due to suspension and injury. A draw would of been the fair result with both teams having good spells of play.
Have the lads knuckled down and realised it’s not going to be an easy task to gain promotion?
L: Certainly, I have said from the start that we should not underestimate the league this year. There is some real quality teams here. We simply will not have an easy game this season, we were branded favourites. Everyone wants to beat us.
You’ve watched Europa already, what’s your thoughts on them so far?
L: Of all the teams i have watched Europa are definitely one of the best technical teams I have seen. It will be another tough task but the boys are ready and fired up from last weeks result.
Scott, first of all welcome to FCO13. You’ve literally just touched down in Gibraltar, how did the move to Olympique 13 happen?
S: My ex team-mate and manager Garry O’Connor (ex Hibs, Lokomotiv Moscow, Birmingham etc) knows Lewis from their time together at Hibernian and Gary reached out to me saying he had a friend in Gibraltar looking for players and whether or not I fancied it and wanted to speak to Lewis and I said yeah why not!
You played in last weeks match against Boca, what’s your thoughts on Gib football so far compared to where you’ve played previously.
From what I have watched and experienced, the standard of play and the willingness to play isn’t too far from what I experienced in Sweden when I was playing for OPE IF, teams want to play the ball on the floor and attack and get time to do so which is great for me as coming from Scotland and specifically when playing in the lower leagues, there’s usually someone on your case instantly and they’re not always looking to just tackle the ball!
How are you enjoying it at the club with Lewis and the squad?
It’s been great, I’ve only been here a short time and all the lads have been brilliant, we all want the same things, to win football matches and that unifies us automatically. We’ve also got a pretty, lively, group chat shall we say so we are all well accustomed to each other through that’s as well as training and playing. Also having Lewis as gaffer is great for me as he is from Edinburgh like myself and small details like that make settling in a lot easier.
It’ll be a tough match against Europa tomorrow, are the lads confident of getting the win?
Like I say, what unifies us as a group is the fact we all want to win every game. Every game we go into we believe we can win. That’s what we’re here to do. I’m looking forward to it.