“It is important to consolidate Portugal in the final phases of the Euro and the World Cup”

AND. statements to journalists at the Portugal Football Summit conference in Oeiras, Francisco Neto said that the games with Northern Ireland, on October 9th and 13th, make “part of the walk to the World Cup” and have to be overcome before thinking about the next play-off stage, in front of Croatia or Iceland.

“ We have a stage where we must be better at our opponents, because otherwise we will never achieve our goals. There's no room for error. We hope to be competent enough to solve our problem in 180 minutes and continue to take another step towards the great goal, which is to be back in the World Championship ", said.

Francisco Neto said that he already has some details about the Northern Ireland team, knowing “the offensive and defensive patterns”, besides having been to Inver Park in Larne, where the first hand is going to take place, to know the conditions he will find, highlighting, for example, the synthetic turf and the less than four meters wide, which will require different training, especially the stalled balls.

For the October 1 convening, Francisco Neto said that he made a pre-list of 40 players, in which are some of those who were in the World under-20, in which Portugal fell in the eighth finals.

“ We have the return that we like very much to Andreia Norton's lawns. She is still a player who is still fulfilling her return plan [after injury]. He hasn't done 90 consecutive minutes at Benfica yet, but the truth is, he's been playing a lot of minutes in every game. For us, it is very important to see [regress to games] a player who has always been with us,” she said.

Asked if Portugal can fight for titles, Francisco Neto recalled that, a year ago, he said that in a decade the Portuguese selections could win trophies, but that this desiderato arrived earlier, with the recent victory of the sub-18 team at the Mediterranean Games.

Francisco Neto also highlighted the under-19 European, in which Portugal fell in the semi-finals, or the Under-20 World Cup, in which the team of ‘quinas’ only lost with the two finalists – Spain and North Korea – and tied with Colombia, which will compete in third place.

“ Things are happening. We have to realize that this is a path that is not easy, it is not linear, because the other teams also grow and were already a few steps ahead of us. [...] It is very important to consolidate Portugal in the final stages of Europeans and the World. [...] Of course, we cannot say that we are candidates at the moment in our senior years, because if we are still talking about the difficulty of finding out, I think we have to be balanced in our words”, he said.