De la Fuente: “Puado? You have to take advantage of your moment …”

What do you expect from the game against Portugal?

I hope to be at the right level in a semi-final. People have recovered well. Beyond the exhaustion of playing overtime, a victory puts out all the fires. I see the team even better than before the game against Croatia. I hope to have everyone recovered to be at the level that this team can reach.

Portugal has eleven goals in four games. How do you counteract that?

We don't think about that, what we want is to win the game with our weapons. He is a rival very similar to us in many respects. They have mechanisms similar to ours. We want to be protagonists, have the ball, arrive and also dominate the defensive side. Being a better team is the only chance to win this type of game. They will think the same. Far from thinking about how to counteract a certain style, what we want is to worry about ourselves, to be strong in our virtues to impose ourselves and be dominators.

It is the first time that we face a selection that is not going to lock up. Is it better or worse?

As a main reflection I think it suits us better. It is a team with many automatisms similar to ours, with players with a profile similar to ours. This mirror effect can occur and we find ourselves almost playing against ourselves. I prefer to find a team like that, more open, with more spaces. Also, obviously, being aware that when they have the ball they are difficult teams to fight because they are very good technically. That creates great difficulty. I prefer to think that we are going to take the initiative. We are going to find a more open team, to be able to play more comfortably than against other more withdrawn ones.

How does the absence of Hugo Guillamón affect?

We have replacement options, but it is a significant loss. He has played almost the entire qualifying round, he was a fixed player. And he was also in a great moment, in a very important confidence phase on an individual level. He gave us a lot but it is low, so you have to think about the solutions, there is no problem because we blindly trust his substitute in this specific circumstance. It will be player by player. In the rest of the approach it will not change, we will always be faithful to our idea.

Do you plan a lot of changes? It would be weird to see Puado as a substitute again …

The smart thing to do is always try to take advantage of the moments. Obviously after seeing the performance the other day of Javi Puado, today he thinks that he is in a moment of maximum security and confidence, it will be necessary to take advantage of it. In that case and in other colleagues who are in a great moment. We will see who gives us more security. But then I'm calm, it's nice when you see that someone is not right, there is great security in taking someone else out. Whoever comes out is going to contribute, with a tremendous illusion, in that I am calm.

What message do you send to people?

That we feel them. When the audience levels pass us we are very happy. We want records to be broken because it is a very good time to watch football. It's a very good time to watch a semi-final against a great team, it's a fantastic game. We want to give a good image and win.