Rafael rues setback in the CONMEBOL Copa Sul-Americana | OneFootball

After a 1-0 loss to Boca Juniors at La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the first leg of the 2026 CONMEBOL Sudamericana quarterfinals, Rafael spoke to the press after the match.

“We knew how difficult today’s match would be. It’s a quarterfinal clash in the CONMEBOL Sudamericana against a great rival, Boca Juniors. It was a very competitive game, and we had our chances. Only 90 minutes have been played, and now we have the strength of MorumBIS together with our fans to turn the score around,” the goalkeeper said.

“We’ll have time to improve our work. We need to study the match and see what we can do better for the second leg, so we can put in a great performance and fight for qualification, which is our objective,” he added.

The number 23 shirt also assessed the team’s positioning on the pitch during the match.

“We’ve been doing an incredible job pressing the ball. So it starts with the forwards, who have been putting in a lot of effort to close down space, and that has helped us a lot. That’s the way forward — to keep improving. The fewer chances the opposing team has, the closer we’ll be to victory,” he concluded.

The second leg of the CONMEBOL Sudamericana quarterfinals will be played next Tuesday (15) at 9:30 p.m. at MorumBIS.

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