Mendilibar: We won in Las Palmas in the league but the team will be completely different this time
Eibar will play against UD Las Palmas in the round of sixteen of the King's Cup
José Luis Mendilibar, SD Eibar manager, said today that despite the fact that his team won in Las Palmas in what was the seventh league match of the season, in the round of sixteen of the cup, with their new manager, «the team will be completely different».
«It will be an even tie, with two teams of equal status,» he said at a press conference in Ipurua.
Mendilibar said that he expected a change to the date for the second leg, because the cup match is scheduled for Wednesday 13 January, but Eibar play against Espanyol on 11 January and UD Las Palmas on Saturday 16 against Atletico Madrid.
The main drawback that Mendilibar sees with this tie is having to travel to Gran Canaria. «We love going to the Canary Islands but this is a journey that involves a total of three days between the journey there, the match and the return journey, and it disrupts our training. We would have preferred the rival closest to home.»