Goalball Champions League: FC Porto aim to join Europe's elite | OneFootball

The group stage of the Goalball Champions League kicks off this Friday, with FC Porto facing off against the English team Fen Tigers (08:00), the German team SSG Blista Marburg (12:20), and the Italian team ASD Omero Bergamo (16:40) at the Odivelas Multiusos Pavilion. The quarter-finals and semi-finals will take place on Saturday, and the final, which awards the European title, will be held on Sunday.

In the lead-up to this edition of the Champions, coach Pedro Filipe expressed the desire “to be one of the best teams at the European level” and assured that “the group is motivated and has real expectations of being successful.” “Aware of the difficulties” they will face against the “top representatives of the different Leagues,” the coach appealed to the fans: “I challenge you to come support us and help us achieve our goal.”

The Goalball Champions “It’s another opportunity to demonstrate our true worth. If we proudly claim to be one of the best teams internationally, it is in these moments that we have to prove it. We have already secured a spot in the first phase, but the goal is to secure a place in the final phase and be among the best teams in Europe.”

The same ambition “I feel the team is motivated and has real expectations of being successful. This doesn’t change because it’s a European competition, because even if it were a national competition, I think it would be exactly the same. From the moment we wear this jersey, we always have the same responsibility. By participating in a competition like the Champions, we know we will face the best teams, and that gives us a bit of nervous excitement, but the responsibility is the same.”

Playing in Odivelas “It would be preferable if it were in our city, but being in our country is always an advantage and even ends up being a way for all the fans and supporters to be able to support us. I challenge you to come support us and help us achieve the goal.”

Analyzing the opponents “In this first phase, we will face three completely different opponents, from three distinct Leagues, who are the top representatives of those countries, and therefore, we know the goalball they will present. They have ways of playing that are completely different from ours, but we have focused a lot on these issues over the past few weeks, and we are aware of the difficulties they will pose to us, but we also know that we will cause them difficulties.”

The path to the final “The dream is the sky. In this first phase, we have to think about advancing to the next one, and from there, it’s about dreaming. We have a good team, but we also recognize the difficulty of the challenges that will be placed before us. We have to trust in ourselves because we have everything to be very successful. We will go game by game to try to be successful in the end.”

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