A BOLA – Selector promises changes but remembers: «Portugal is very strong» (Switzerland)
Life is not easy for Murat Yakin, Swiss coach, who has come under fire after the journey of the Swiss team in the League of Nations. A new confrontation with Portugal follows and the 47-year-old coach spoke about the moment he is going through and the controversies about ballet.
“We have a very strong character and our goal is to succeed. What matters most at the end of the day is the selection. People are trying to divide us and we will not accept that. We are fighting with everything”, he said, trying to find explanations for the cycle of three consecutive years, something that cannot happen since 1999:
“I cannot summarize everything that happened. Our focus is always on the next game. We will present another team against Portugal, but we cannot compare our competitors. We have to make a correct analysis. We showed the players what was negative and positive and tomorrow we will have another game. We made a lot of mistakes in defence. And in the League of Nations you cannot make these mistakes. But we improved a lot against Spain. We won’t control for 90 minutes against Spain, but we dominated most of the second half. We have a strong condition and intelligence. These are the most important ideas in this game.”
Regarding the changes regarding the Portuguese team, Yakin prefers to focus on the qualities of the group he commands:
«Portugal is very strong, it can always win. But more importantly, we can play. Not too much about Portugal. We are focused on our game. Play against many Portuguese in the stadium. We also went through that against Spain, most of the fans were Spanish. I hope that the majority of fans tomorrow will be Switzerland.”