Sean Dyche reflects on Burnley's Europa League tie with Evangelos Marinakis' Olympiakos
Sean Dyche has revealed he and Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis were able to share a laugh and joke about their previous history in the Europa League.
The former Burnley boss, now in the hotseat at the City Ground, saw his Clarets side knocked out of the competition by Marinakis’ Olympiakos during the 2018/19 season.
After losing 3-1 away in their play-off, with Ben Gibson being sent off, Burnley were only able to draw 1-1 in the return leg at Turf Moor, resulting in their European journey coming to an end.
That only tells half the story, however, with Dyche unhappy with the way Olympiakos acted during the first leg in Athens, with it being claimed Marinakis entered the referee’s room at half-time to berate the officials.
Speaking ahead of his first game in charge at Forest, which comes against Porto in the Europa League group stage on Thursday, Dyche was asked if he and Marinakis had spoken about their previous history.
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“We had a bit of a giggle about it,” he said.
"It was a different thing then, it was a surprise package.
"I suppose in a way this [Forest qualifying for Europe] has been a surprise as well with the power these guys showed last season to get there.
"It was such an enormous thing at that stage. I will say this club is more geared up [for Europe], the depth of the squad, the facilities, everything.
"At Burnley it came too quick really, it was such a new experience. The players were almost in a confuddlement with how many different ways we had to travel, how many different ways we had to prep and all of those things.
"These guys, I know they’re in Europe for the first time in a long time, but there’s a lot of European players here and they’re a bit more open-minded to it all.
"But no, I remember those days. It was important to me and my career to learn all about that, but you need the luck of the draw. We were playing a team with a really long name I can’t even say, one of the Turkish sides [Basaksehir]. You’re travelling overnight and not getting into bed until 6am and that sort of thing before having to fly down to London to play against Fulham, I think it was. It’s a whole different ball game when you’re doing that.
"But the draw here is different, you can be back quite quick and the players recover, but it all plays its part.”
When asked if he had forgiven Marinakis, Dyche added: “There’s no forgiving, we just had a laugh about it. But we did tell a story to each other and had a laugh about it.”
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