Sporting’s coach recalls the winning streak against Kairat, Benfica, Cartagena, and Palma, saying it wasn’t a success by chance or luck. Players didn’t spare the coach from a dressing-down in the press room.
Sporting’s futsal coach, Nuno Dias, stated this Sunday that the Lions’ Champions League victory was categorical and meritorious and leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind.
It doesn’t taste better or worse [than the two previous Champions League titles won]. It has a special flavor and, above all, a feeling of well-deserved achievement. It’s an achievement that leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind. Anyone who analyzes futsal, anyone who analyzes sports and has seen these games, has absolutely no doubt that Sporting deserves it and, quite rightly, leaves Pesaro with the Champions League trophy for Lisbon, he stated in the press conference room at the Pesaro Futsal Arena, where his players ended up giving him a shower with water and beer.
Already soaked, the coach continued his analysis of the final and the competition, highlighting that Sporting, until lifting the trophy, had beaten “all the top-ranked teams” in futsal. “We beat Kairat, we beat Benfica, we beat Cartagena, we beat Palma. We beat all the best teams, and in a decisive way. We beat them all fairly, we won because we were better. And that makes me even more satisfied, because it didn’t happen by chance. We didn’t win by chance or luck, he said, emphasizing that the crucial moment was managing to maintain the 1-0 lead while playing with one less player in the last two minutes of the first half (due to Diogo Santos’s expulsion).
More than just winning, it’s the way we won, how we managed to win. More than having won and finally regaining this trophy, which had been eluding us for some time, it’s the manner in which we achieved it, the categorical and meritorious way in which we achieved this triumph after beating all the best teams in Europe, he declared.