Benfica boss upbeat despite Champions League defeat: football's like that | OneFootball

Ivan Batista expressed satisfaction with the way Benfica played the game, despite regretting the defeat against Juventus, in the first match of the Women's Champions League. The coach of the red team gave statements at the end of the match, which ended in a 2-1 defeat to Juventus.

"The team started well, with character, with personality. Coming to play here in this stadium against this opponent is never easy. We had to enter with that personality, with that character, with that desire to contest the game from start to finish, and I think that's what we did", Ivan Batista began to explain.

Then, he analyzed the initial moments of the match: "In the first five minutes, the ball was almost always ours, we even managed to score a goal, a good goal, and then we lacked a bit of calm, to control the moment of the game a little, in which Juventus was really on top during those fifteen minutes, essentially until they reached the equalizing goal".

"At halftime, we felt we had to adjust to better defend the width of the field and to be able to raise the pressure lines. The adjustment was not to lower the lines, quite the opposite, as seen, we found it easier to press their build-up line, we managed better transitions and created problems in spaces, something we were not able to do in the first half", explained the Benfica coach, about the changes he made during the break.

He concluded with a word of appreciation for his team: "Football is like that, we were competent in 99% of the set pieces. We were competent in most of those plays and ended up conceding the goal at a time when perhaps they didn't expect it either, because the game in the second half was very divided, without great goal opportunities. The team believed, if they hadn't believed, they wouldn't have entered with the personality they did".

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