Brazil coach Carlos Amadeu, on Saturday, admitted that despite recording a 2-0 win over Mali to take the third spot, his team played its ‘worst match’ of the under-17 World Cup.
“We had our worst match of the World Cup. It was our worst match in two and half years, but we were lucky it went our way,” said Amadeu in the post-match press conference at the Salt Lake Stadium here.
“Mali has a great team. Today we returned lucky. We have to look at Mali’s team. They have a great team... Their style of play is really good.”
Explaining why his team could not play up to its potential, Amadeu said, “We know we could have done much better today. In Brazil there is a saying, ‘When you lose a semifinal, you want to leave.’ We always want to win; when we cannot win any more we want to leave. This is why it was so difficult to motivate this players. We had to work hard to keep them motivated in the match.
“I told them today that this crowd may not be here for us, but to see the final; but if they are here to see the third place match then they want to see Brazil and Mali. So let’s give them a show. We would like to have a made a great game. We could not.”
Amadeu said his team learnt how important it was to have good preparation in the build-up to such an important tournament. “We cannot come to a competition like this without good preparation. We played many matches against European, African and NorthAmerican teams. We needed professionals with good people because we have to spend 50 days together. We got success. We tried to show you Brazilian football. Today we could not. We have to be more organised.”
Mali coach Jonas Komla refused to blame goalkeeper Youssouf Koita for his lapse which resulted in the opening goal. “He is also human. I am not angry with the goalkeeper. We had a lot of occasions to score but this is hard luck.
“We had a very nice match and had a lot of opportunities but unfortunately we could not score any. The opposition was strong and they scored. But I am proud of my team,” said Komla.
Comments
SHARE