Pascal Gross will be keeping his eye on the ball on Europa League night.
Hopefully to better effect than a Premier League opponent and, momentarily, an Old Trafford cameraman managed last Saturday.
Gross sent Lisandro Martinez off in the wrong direction with the body feint which preceded his goal at Manchester United.
As the Prem’s own social platforms highlighted, he also fooled a cameraman, who panned across to the left before realising Gross and the ball had gone to the right.
For those old enough, the moment was up there with the time Kieran O’Regan scored with a volley at the Goldstone with which the cameraman could not keep up.
Not a bad way to go into potentially one of the biggest nights of your career.
But for Gross the focus – and the belief - remains very much on AEK after a little more than a week which has seen him help his country beat France and his club dazzle at the Theatre Of Dreams.
Asked how quickly he turned the page, he said: “Straight away – the next day.
“Every three days we have a big game. Manchester United was a big game, now this is a big game.
“We need to focus right away. From (this) evening we need to think about Sunday (at home to Bournemouth).
“We don’t have time to calm down too much.
“We need to continue and think about the next game all the time."
Gross has been around long enough to know something of the longer-term history of Albion.
He possibly has an unrivalled working knowledge of the Prem years, having signed soon after promotion was clinched.
He said: “I never through when I came we could go this far.
“I think it’s incredible the way we grow, especially the last year.
“Our development is very good but we want to keep going, keep pushing.
“We are happy where we are now but we want to be better all the time.
“I watch football every day. I have been watching European games for ten years on the TV.
“Now it is my chance to play my first European game and I’m really proud and really looking forward to it.
“I want to enjoy it but I also want to perform well and win the game.”
Yesterday’s press conference at Albion’s training complex had a more European feel to it than usual.
Different backdrops, different sponsors’ logos, different (and more) people present.
And player and head coach sat next to each other on the top table when normally, before a domestic fixture, it is only Roberto De Zerbi.
Slightly awkward then for Gross - or it might have been – when asked to sum up what De Zerbi has done for Albion.
But he was more than happy to speak about that.
He said: “I can speak for the whole squad. We are really happy we can work with him.
“Every single player is improving. We are improving as a team.
“What has changed is the belief. We really started to believe we can achieve something big.
“Last year there was a time, maybe ten games to go, where we weren't sure if we could really reach the top six but he told us we can and we started to believe that we can because the performance showed us that we deserve to be there.
“We are really lucky but we're not happy, we're hungry.
“Everyone is hungry. The whole squad, the manager and staff is hungry.
“We want to become better every day in training and then in the game we want to prove it. That is the secret, we need to keep hungry.”
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