Tipsport Malta Cup: I’ve been waiting for a goal for a long time, Dominik Preisler of Liberec welcomed the hit

How long did you wait for the goal?

For a long time. I think the last time I scored was when I was still in the jersey of Mladá Boleslav in the cup with Slovácko. So two or three years, a long time.

I tried to break it every game, even the chances didn’t come much. And when they came, I burned them. I’ve been preparing more chances for others, when I’ve been putting centres into the penalty area. So now it’s finally come, thankfully.

But it looked like your shot was going to go over the bar. Weren’t you afraid?

I watched it, but fortunately I hit the ball well. But it was only just. I saw Rambo (Rabusic) running to the ball, I shouted at him to let me have it, it would probably have been offside.

In your situation, when you wait a long time for a goal, there’s a reward for the passer. Did you do that?

It’s still just preparation, so not really. But something will happen in the league. An invitation to coffee or something.

Liberec finished third. Do you take that ranking?

Of course we wanted to play the final and fight for first place. Like all teams. We’re glad for third place, but we always set ourselves the highest goals.

You beat Zlín. Is that worth anything?

It does, even if it’s just a preparation. The league will be much harder. We wanted to win. Besides, Zlín is a team we haven’t done well against.

The team was reinforced by Nigerian striker Victor Olatunji. How do you like him?

He knows how to hold the ball, he wins a lot of duels, from the first training sessions you can see that he will be dangerous in the penalty area. We agreed right away with the boys that he’s a real hammer. His head game is unbelievable, I was very surprised. He’ll be a hard worker too. If we help him, he’ll help us.

I suppose you’ll help him get used to it quickly.

As soon as he arrived, we spoke to him in English so he knew where to be, what time to be, how the club is… We don’t know yet if he remembers anything from Slovak (he played for Inter Bratislava and Zeleziarne Podbrezova), but he will surely pick up something from Czech soon.