André Pereira: “a huge desire to change the game in the second half” | OneFootball

André Pereira, coach of FC Porto’s futsal team, highlighted the players’ response in the 5-2 win over Miramar Império on matchday three of the league. After a first half that ended with the Dragons trailing 1-2, the coach praised the team’s character, while not hiding that there is still room for improvement. Above all, he saw the players come back with “a huge desire to change the course of the game in the second half.”

In his post-match remarks, André Pereira did not treat the comeback as a simple consequence of his team’s superiority. The coach acknowledged the opponent’s well-prepared game plan and saw going into halftime behind for the first time as a test of FC Porto’s ability to respond.

Faced with an unfamiliar setback at this stage of the season, the coach admitted that Porto were surprised during the first half. Even so, he viewed the moment as a test of character, one the team ultimately answered after the break.

“It was the first time we found ourselves facing a different kind of adversity on the scoreboard, and we knew this day would come, because the other teams do their work too. I know Miramar’s coach very well and I think he did his job very well, because his team was very well prepared to play against us.” André Pereira continued: “During the first half, maybe we were caught off guard by that and went into the break behind, but maybe it’s good that this moment came early in the season. We showed that we have the character to deal with those moments and we played a much better second half than the first. Obviously there is still a lot to improve, but I want to congratulate the players, who came back out with a huge desire to change the course of the game in the second half.”

André Pereira’s reading of the match balanced praise with high standards. In the coach’s view, the reaction confirmed the group’s character, but the performance before halftime also served as a warning that was not ignored.

The change began in the dressing room, where the message did not come only from the coach. André Pereira revealed that the captain had already taken the initiative before he spoke, leaving him to reinforce the plan prepared during the week and restore the players’ confidence.

“It may be a cliché, but when I got to the dressing room the captain had already done half the job. I did the other half, which was to remind them of what we had worked on during the week and ask them to have confidence in themselves, to believe in what we had planned and to bring that onto the court, because that was what was missing.”

More than a team talk built on major changes, it was an appeal to the work already done and to collective belief. The second half, then, was the team’s on-court expression of that confidence regained at halftime.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.