Miguel Coelho: “I expect another top-level match” against SC Braga | OneFootball

Miguel Coelho, head coach of FC Porto’s women’s volleyball team, looked ahead to the clash with SC Braga after Porto booked their place in the Iberian Cup final with a 3-0 win over CD Heidelberg. The coach pointed to the need to maintain the team’s performance level, highlighted the strength of a revamped opponent, and framed his competitive ambition within the pride of representing the Club. For the next challenge, he expects “another game of the highest level against an SC Braga side that has more quality than last year.”

With a place in the final already secured, Miguel Coelho reflected on a new season built on a similar foundation to the previous one. The central idea is clear: rather than seeking reinvention, FC Porto want to sustain the standards that allowed them to compete at the highest level, without losing room to grow.

Asked about the transition between seasons, the coach stressed that maintaining the level already reached can be an even greater challenge than getting there in the first place. The match against CD Heidelberg, despite the one-sided result, also served as a test and a chance to make adjustments.

“It’s a transition into a new season with practically the same foundation as last season and, for us, raising the level will often mean maintaining it. Staying at a very high level all the time is harder than reaching it. With these players, we had a very satisfactory volume and quality of work in a terribly difficult season for all teams and now, more than reinventing ourselves, we have to maintain the level from one season to the next, always with the goal of improving,” he said. “We need more opponents who test us like CD Heidelberg did. Even though this was a one-sided match, they still scored through high balls to a player we didn’t want to score. We gradually reduced the quality of their attacking process and kept adjusting, that’s the good part, and now we’ll look for more of that against a different opponent tomorrow.”

In Miguel Coelho’s words, victory does not remove the need to fine-tune processes. On the contrary, it reinforces the search for opponents and situations that force the team to respond, adapt and preserve the quality of its play.

Attention now turns to SC Braga, a rival the coach considers deeply competitive. Although he acknowledges significant changes in Braga’s squad, Miguel Coelho identifies familiar ideas in the opposition and characteristics that promise to demand constant adaptation.

“It’s an opponent we know well. Not the squad, which has a completely revamped core, but the staff is the same. From the little we managed to see today, it was possible to spot ideas that were already there last year,” he said. “If we look at last year’s SC Braga team, this is now a taller team, stronger in blocking and attack, with a different setter, but one we already know well. So both teams will have to adapt throughout the match and I’m expecting another game of the highest level against an SC Braga side that has more quality than last year. They are a very strong opponent and a candidate to win every competition they take part in.”

The expectation, therefore, is of a match with no room for automatic patterns. The way the teams read each other, the changes seen at SC Braga and the quality attributed to both sides point to a highly demanding challenge.

Beyond the immediate competition, Miguel Coelho also spoke about his connection to FC Porto and the responsibility he feels in the role. The coach linked the ambition to keep competing in finals to the environment he finds at the Club and the happiness shown by the players.

“I want to continue having the privilege of being FC Porto’s coach. My family and my friends love that I’m here. I feel a positive sense of responsibility in representing an unbelievable Club in every possible way. It is a Club with people who are completely passionate about what they do and who give something extra in every aspect of daily life,” he said. “We are surrounded by four sports departments that bring us so much every day and we are part of one of the best structures in Europe and the world when it comes to women’s volleyball. I want to continue having the privilege of being on these stages, of continuing to try to win finals. That has been the journey over the last three years and we want to keep feeling that it is a privilege and a very good opportunity to be here. Then I want to pass that on to the team. One of the things I liked most today was the happiness on the players’ faces, because a happy team is a team that keeps producing more and more. We’re only just starting now, but these are the steps, and then we have to work more and better than everyone else.”

The message ends on a point that runs through his entire statement: privilege only has real meaning when it is turned into hard work. Between satisfaction with the path already taken and the ambition to keep winning, Miguel Coelho sees a happy team as an essential condition for raising the bar once again.

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