Team confidence is more important than qualification, says Sporting Lisbon coach Domingos Paciência
Sporting Lisbon coach, Domingos Paciência, claims that for him team confidence is far important than qualifying for the next stages of the UEFA Europa League. The Lions took on Vaslui at Jose Alvalade and emerged with a 2-0 win, a result which has assured
their progression to the next round of the prestigious competition.
Portuguese giants, Sporting Lisbon, took on their Romanian counterparts, Vaslui, at Estadio Jose Alvalade in their UEFA Europa League tie yesterday.
The hosts were deemed as favourites for this one and in the end comfortably won 2-0 as an inspired Matias Fernandez pulled the strings in Lisbon.
Going into the game, the Sportinguistas had a number of injury concerns but they still managed to earn three points without some of their most influential stars.
However they far from their best and only broke the deadlock, after the visitors went down to 10-men following the dismissal of their skipper.
Matias Fernandez made the numerical advantage count and laid on an assist for http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Evaldo-c12981, who applied the finish to send the score up to 1-0 on 42 minutes.
After the break, Sporting were able to keep the majority of the ball, but they had a few clear cut chances to add to their tally. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Stijn-Schaars-c34229 tried his luck with a ferocious effort and the Dutch striker was quite unlucky, as his shot crashed off the post.
The Lisbon outfit did net another shortly after, as Fernandez capped off a fine display with a very well taken goal on the 69th minute.
Andre Carrillo set his teammate on the path to glory with sumptuous pass and Fernandez equalled the quality of the ball, with an expertly taken finish that the Vaslui keeper could do little about.
The Romanian side were looked out of their depth and weren’t even able to net a consolation. With the final whistle, celebrations erupted as it signalled that the home team's progression to the latter stages of the UEFA Europa League.
Following his side’s win, Sporting coach Domingos Paciência said that to him qualifying did not matter much but instead he took other positives from the game such as his players playing with confidence.
“More important than being determined is that the team should be feeling more confident and be playing better. In the last 10 games, we scored 10 goals and that is a a good sign in terms of defence and attack.”
The tactician also heaped praise on his team, saying that they knew exactly how to counter the threat of their opponents and scored timely goals to secure the three points.
"We knew how to play against Vaslui. They had tried to play on the counter attack with fast players like http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Adaílton-c3508. Fortunately we did well to limit movement of the ball and scored at the right time,” he said.
Sporting Lisbon now take on http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Vicente-c36001 on the 23rd of October in the Primeira Liga.
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