Reaction of the Estrela da Amadora coach to the draw with Sp. Braga (3-3)
João Nuno, coach of Estrela da Amadora, in a press conference after the draw at home against Sp. Braga (3-3), in a match of the 17th round of the League.
Was it a comeback effort from Estrela that secured this draw?
“Yes, it was always a game of chasing after the deficit, but above all, I want to highlight the team’s spirit. We didn’t win three points, but we could have won at the very end, with everyone supporting us, the whole stadium on its feet, and we almost won. The penalty incident is one of those VAR incidents, but Braga has a lot of quality, they put a lot of players in line with the ball.”
“We talked at halftime about the difficulties we were having defending our left side, the right side of Braga’s attack, and that’s where Zalazar came in. They scored two goals, but the team managed to react, believed until the end, and we managed to draw. It’s not the result we wanted, but we’re conceding a lot of goals. We’re also scoring a lot of goals, but I’m sad about the result. I think if we had better defined our marking on the left side we could have gotten the three points, but it’s always another point in our journey.
Kikas reached his 100th game for Estrela and has already scored as many goals as he did last season. Are they worried about losing the striker this January?
“First, I have to congratulate Kikas, who today played his 100th game for Estrela; it’s a beautiful milestone. He’s a great professional and a very important player in our style of play. Now we have to respect our project; when we don’t have Kikas, we’ll play with someone else. We have to find solutions.”
Estrela gained a new lease of life in the final stages of the game. Was this something planned, worked on?
“It wasn’t planned that we didn’t defend our left flank so well. At that stage, after we scored the 3-2, Braga didn’t know whether to continue attacking or hold onto the result. We tried to take advantage of that hesitation and finished the game in Braga’s area, but I didn’t like that part very much. I’m worried about the team’s imbalance, playing against Braga with a central defender up front. I don’t like it much; I prefer the game to be more controlled, but I’ve been there and I know the spirit this team has. We are turning the José Gomes stadium into a beautiful home.
The transfer market is open, will you be looking to improve the team?
Now the important thing is not to make any major changes. We brought Kevin [Jansson] from the third division in Germany. We’ll have a week off and we’ll play a friendly match to settle our ideas. If we got another player like Kevin, we’d be very happy. Kevin has a lot of quality, he’ll help us a lot. But I’d really prefer if nobody left, you’d be very happy.