The selector of Portugal, Fernando Santoshighlighted the ability to recover the ball as the main “strong” of the Spanish team, which the team of the “quinas” that will face this Thursday in the Benito Villamarin. “I think that the strongest attribute of Spain is not the possession of the ball, but the ability to recover it. All the Spanish teams in this school, with these coaches, which is the Barcelona school, what they always have in mind is the ability to recover,” he alleged on Wednesday. Santos at a press conference.
However, he recalled that the objective is not to have possession, but to score: “Football is not a game of possession, it is a game of goals.”
The coach acknowledged the “extremely difficult” task of getting through the group stage of the Nations Leaguewhich will lead the Portuguese team to face Spain, Switzerland and the Czech Republicalthough he assured that the objective “is always to win”.
He criticized the little separation between the first games, scheduled for June 2, 5, 9 and 12, and stated that he “does not remember” seeing something like this before.
“I see it clearly exaggerated (…) A situation of four games in ten days in a final phase never occurred,” he defended.
For this reason, he must rotate the 26 summoned for the Nations League.
For this series of matches, he has opted for the experience of some of the players who led Portugal to win the 2016 European Championship in France, but also for youngsters such as Nuno Mendes or Rafael Leão.
The leader and captain remains Cristianowho at 37 years old arrives wanting to show that he is still a decisive player after a season at Manchester United that has not fulfilled his expectations, and when there is already talk that Qatar 2022 will be his goodbye with the national team.
When asked by the Madeiran if he could describe him in one word, Santos replied that he is “the best in the world”.
He made these statements after training organized today at the Ciudad del Fútbol de Oeiras, on the outskirts of Lisbon, hours before traveling to Seville to face Spain in the League of Nations.
25 of the 26 summoned came out onto the grass, since Vitinha he is on leave due to covid.
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