The Boss Stars Were Heroes.. Pedro Emmanuel: We Do Not Seek Excuses, and We Committed Mistakes
We Did Not Train for Nine Days and Played Against Young and Fresh Team
“My team players were heroes in tonight’s match, which the piece of information that not all of you like to listen to,” Pedro Emmanuel opened the post-match press conference of round 1 match of the Arabian Gulf Cup against Khorfakkan held at Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium and ended by 4-2 in favor of the guests.
He commented on his squad’s performance by saying: “I would like to clarify certain points that are closely related to the team’s performance. Once we are done with the AFC Champions League competitions where we played four matches within nine days only, we flew back to the UAE. We were locked down for nine days per the quarantine protocols and did not train during these days.”
He added: “I reported that to everybody and warned them that we are about to start the new season within only one week. Therefore, I believe that the players are heroes because they played under difficult conditions.”
The head coach stressed that he is not seeking excuses to justify losing the match, but it is a realistic analysis of the team’s current status. “Yes, we committed many mistakes that should not happen if the players pay more attention. Indeed, we were unlucky tonight.”
“If we were lucky, the result will be completely different. Football sometimes is not fair as we wasted a penalty and the match referee denied us another one. If we scored the first one, I believe things would be different,” he said.
Pedro went on to say: “Considering the team’s lineup, we selected ten young players “under-20 years old”. This is a good thing for the Club and happy that none of them were injured.”
He signed off: “We will close this chapter, and in the second leg match, we are required to score at three goals. We will fight until the end, simply because we are Al Ain.”
