Ancellotti : “We did everything we could. I said to the players that the first match is never easy. We played well in pre-season and we are excited. We didn’t play well, but that’s normal. The most important thing is to win the match, and I think we deserved to win because we created many opportunities to score. Honestly, Betis played well. They are a good team”, he acknowledged. The team has various options in midfield, which they applied during the match. The coach ensured: “We can improve, it’s normal. I think that any combination is good. We created lots of opportunities to score by combining well, especially on the wing. The problem was defence, on the whole. In the first half there was no balance, we didn’t play together and we had problems. In the second half we were better in this regard. In my opinion that was the problem in this match, the defence”. The Italian coach aims to create a balance between good attacking play and sound defensive work by combining high-quality players. When asked if there would be an improvement in this aspect and about footballer such as Özil and Isco, he said the following: “Yes, I’m sure there will be because if we want to play quality football we need quality footballers that also play defensively. They are generous players, especially Isco, who did everything in this game. He scored a fantastic goal. I think it is a normal problem to have at this stage. I think the key to this season is that, the balance that we have to find with quality players”. Ancelotti wanted to emphasise the aspects of his team’s match, and he stated: “It was a problem of balance. We didn’t defend well between the lines in midfield and defence, there was a lot of space between the lines. Betis played a well. Nine of the players that played tonight were with their national teams and we didn’t have much time to prepare for the match. Many have travelled and I noted that Betis were in better shape physically”. The team has many possibilities tactically thanks to the excellent squad that Ancelotti has available to him, who highlighted that he doesn’t have a definite team yet. “No, rotations I think. I have a good squad. Morata, Di María and Casemiro made the team strong at a difficult time. I don’t think there’s a starting XI because we have many quality players”, he revealed. Finally, when asked about the goalkeeper in the starting XI he selected for the opening match in the national competition, Ancelotti clarified: “I made that decision today. I think that, as I said yesterday, they are decisions based on minor details, but that’s the decision I made. Diego López was the goalkeeper for this match and we’ll see for the next game. I spoke with Iker, who is very professional. He wants to play and that’s good. Diego played and he was the goalkeeper today”, he said.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 23:24:58 +0000
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