Fernando Santos (coach of Portugal, winner of Turkey (3-1) in the semi-finals of the 2022 World accession play-offs): “I think the first 20-25 minutes were very good, in the offensive and defensive organization, with and without the ball. Everything to perfection. Then we lowered the intensity a bit in the game, especially in the pressing. From there, the opponent started to play, and we, when we had less of the ball, we encountered more difficulties. We had ten minutes during which things did not follow each other. From the 35th minute we came back, we scored the second goal.
In the second half, we again made a good start. We failed to score the third goal, that’s football. You do not materialize and the opponent, on a hazardous action, ends up scoring a goal and this penalty (Burak Yilmaz missed the 2-2 for Turkey) could have complicated the game. Now I think it’s a fair win for Portugal. Everyone was planning a Portugal-Italy, except the Macedonian people, no doubt. We will have a lot of respect for Macedonia (North) as we would have had for Italy. The finals are very difficult, they are matches to be won without thinking that we are winning from the start. (On Ronaldo’s performance) We always analyze Cristiano Ronaldo through his goals. Today, he didn’t score, but he had a superb match in intensity, in pressing. He opened up a lot of spaces for others. A job to highlight for a player of Cristiano’s quality, it cannot be reduced to goals. »
Stefan Kuntz, Turkey coach, after the loss to Portugal: “Tonight we weren’t as lucky as Portugal. After the first conceded goal, we woke up and we had three chances without materializing. The second goal we conceded is a bit stupid and that’s why we lost. At half-time, I told my players to believe it and they did. We almost changed the game, we have to be proud of our team when we played in Portugal. We didn’t equalize but if we did it would have been another game as Portugal panicked with the penalty in the 85th minute.
If we watch this match, we learn a lot of things and in Turkey, nobody can be ashamed of this team. We are at the beginning of the path. We did some good things considering the age of this team. We should have believed in our game plan and our strengths from the start of the match and not after 20 minutes, especially against a strong team like Portugal. »