According to Tasnim news agency, Fernando Santos, head coach of the Portuguese national team, after his men lost 2-1 against South Korea in the last round of Group H games of the 2022 World Cup, despite which the representative of Europe advanced to the round of 16 as the first team in the group. He told reporters: As we got closer to the end of the game, our team lost its cohesion, and this caused the opponent’s superiority in hand-to-hand battles. In the second half, the game had many ups and downs. In terms of possession, order and organization to circulate the ball, we performed well and prevented the opponent from implementing their usual game plan. For this reason, we had the first half under control, but as the game went by, we suffered a decline and not only the speed of our movements decreased, but we also started to make individual movements too much. I told the players between the two halves that every time we put the ball behind the defenders we were able to cause them problems, but in the second half we couldn’t do that much. My players did their best and I am responsible for this loss.
Referring to South Korea’s second goal, which was scored in a corner counterattack for the Portuguese, Santos added: “Such things can happen.” The same thing happened in our game against Serbia, of course the players know that they should not allow such a thing to happen again in the future.
In response to the question of whether this loss was good for the Portuguese national team, the head coach of the Portuguese national team emphasized: Losing is never good. The morale of the team was high before this loss, but this defeat will reduce it a bit, of course, I agree that this result will make us recover a little. The group we were in was full of professional teams and this defeat gives us lessons for the next games. We have to be ourselves in the next games. In the World Cup, all competitors are tough.
