Francisco Neto: "First of all, I would like to thank the audience for the match. Its very important for us. I hope that the public will also be present for the match against Japan.

As for the game against France, I would already like to say that as a Portuguese, I feel proud of the selection. Not only as coach of this team, but just as Portuguese. We are 42nd in the FIFA rankings, we faced the third in the same rankings and we managed to control almost all their initiatives and thwart their strengths. We got there because our players gave their all and really played together.

The colors of our flag are well defended by our players. We knew the potential of the French team, we knew that France would have possession of the ball and we had to be humble on the defensive phases. We managed to be humble, to delay to the maximum the goal of France and try with our offensive phases to score a goal. The French did not allow us to approach their cage and the result is the one you could see.

We wanted to get opportunities but we must realize that, if we did not get it, all the credit is from France. It's a very strong team. But we must remember that we are evolving and growing slowly. You have to feel more comfortable with ball possession and you have to make quick decisions. It is by playing with such nations that our players understand the path they still have to take to evolve. I have no doubt that in the next game we will be able to secure opportunities against our opponent. We will try to make a good match against Japan and we hope to evolve even more against Denmark.

Our goal on this tournament is to evolve, while keeping what works, that is to say our defense. By being strong, we could create opportunities. Japan was surprised in the first match, but it remains the world champion team. In the face of Japan, there is one piece of information that we must take into account: recovery. We have a day to recover and at this level of competition, it can be detrimental to us and not allow us to be 100%. Our priority before the game against Japan is to recover. Against Japan it will be the same thing as against France, it will play collective and it will suffer. We want to repeat what we did in France. We will first try to stop the Japanese and then project forward and create opportunities.

Source: Marco Martins

Photo credits: DR; fpf.fr