Andrea Faria. Serbia “is within reach of Portugal”
Footballer Andreia Faria expects “difficulties” in Thursday’s match against Serbia, in the qualifying phase for the 2023 World Cup, but guarantees that “the opponent is within Portugal’s reach”.
“If we play in a concentrated and organized way, and we’re not careless, we can win the game as we wish,” 21-year-old midfielder Andreia Faria told the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) communication channels.
Andreia Faria said that the Portuguese team’s ambition is to “win the three points in this game at Estádio do Bonfim [com a Sérvia] and in Bulgaria “and all the elements of the selection” are united “and” know what they want “.
“We will do our best to achieve our objective, which is to leave with six points of this double qualifying journey. We have to be ourselves, play our football and win,” he said.
Asked about the presence of the public at the Estádio do Bonfim, the stage that will host Portugal-Serbia, on Thursday, at 18:00, Andreia Faria said that “this support can be decisive”.
“We want to successfully overcome this qualifying stage. Playing at home with fans cheering for our teams will definitely help us to overcome Serbia. We have the support of everyone in Setúbal,” he admitted.
The coach Francisco Neto has not yet had at his disposal, this Sunday, all the players called up: Jessica Silva (Kansas City), Tatiana Pinto (Levante), Inês Pereira (Servette) and Suzane Pires (Ferr) will only be part of the work on Monday. fair, due to commitments in the respective clubs.
With a draw in Turkey (1-1) and a rout in Israel (4-0), Portugal has four points in Group H qualifying for the 2023 World Cup, two less than leaders Germany, who won the two games they played. Serbia and Bulgaria have yet to score.
The national team has been successively qualifying for the Worlds since 1999, but never managed to qualify. In its last qualifying phase, for the World Cup in France, in 2019, the team from the corners was third in their group, behind Italy and Belgium.
The European teams are entitled to 11 direct places in the 2023 World Cup, to be played in New Zealand and Australia, with nine coming out of the winners of the qualifying groups and two more found through “play-offs”.