Without wanting to link his opinions to elimination, the national coach considers that the organization’s option could have been to consider covid-19 as “a flu, as will happen in the future, letting those who have no symptoms play”.
The Portuguese handball coach, Paulo Jorge Pereira, considered this Tuesday, after the defeat against the Netherlands (32-31), that Euro’2022 “should be cancelled” because it was not logical “to play in these conditions”.
Without wanting to link his opinions to elimination, the national coach considers that the organization’s option could have been to consider covid-19 as “a flu, as will happen in the future, letting those who have no symptoms play”.
Portugal finished fourth and last in group B, which took place in Budapest, counting the matches against Iceland (28-24), hosts Hungary (30-31) and the Netherlands (32-31) by defeat.
“It’s not easy. What I tried from the beginning, even in the half-dozen training sessions that we did in January, was to prepare the competition in an inclusive way. I tried that the younger players could have more time for competition”, he explained.
Paulo Jorge Pereira said that he tried to manage from the first game that everyone was playing, because he knew that the team was going to have some physical problems, and thus play in anticipation, not in reaction.
“But we came to the conclusion that we needed to have more games to prepare for this transition and find the best offensive and defensive format,” he said, citing the example of Ángel Hernández.
The coach explained that he had to play without a left-handed right-back and the Portuguese team must have been the only one to always play with a right-handed right-back, which sometimes limits the game.
“Fortunately, we have Miguel Martins and Fábio Magalhães who do the position well, but it doesn’t always work. Dariel [Ángel Hernández] couldn’t train”, said the coach.
Regarding the decisive game with the Netherlands, in which Portugal was forced to win by two goals to advance to the next stage, Paulo Jorge Pereira considers that there was a “feeling of bitterness” that “a little more” could have been done.
“I think we were a little undisciplined in the game. We tried to follow the plan, but we weren’t patient. We wanted to arrive, make two passes and finish. In defensive terms, we knew where our weakness was and we improved, although the defensive transition was a problem in the second part”, he said.
The coach considered that the team improved a lot in individual duels and in the way of being in the game, but then he struggled with some mental factors.
“The way we prepared the game was not the best. As a coach, I accept the mistake. Probably those would not be the best options for the game. And in this case, it is the coach who has to assume”, he concluded.
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