On the eve of the Qantas Young Socceroos second match of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 against Costa Rica, Head Coach Jan Versleijen is hoping that his team can learn from the mistakes they made against Ecuador and obtain the three points that they desire to progress to the next round.
On the eve of the Qantas Young Socceroos second match of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 against Costa Rica, Head Coach Jan Versleijen is hoping that his team can learn from the mistakes they made against Ecuador and obtain the three points that they desire to progress to the next round.
Speaking at the official pre-match media conference, Versleijen knows the importance of the next match in the tournament and the bearing the result will have on his team-s future in the competition.
“It-s only the second game in the tournament, but it can be a deciding game,” said Versleijen.
“The first game is important not to lose. Because, if you lose, you get more pressure on the second and third games.
“For us, the lesson we learned from our first game is that we have to work harder to keep the ball in the midfield.
“The main point for us is we have to get more control of the midfield which is what we lacked against Ecuador.
“We were lucky enough to get a point against Ecuador and that helped us a lot for the confidence and mood for our next game.
"We know Costa Rica played a good game against Spain. They were very close to a draw, but in the end, in the last minutes they got three and then 4-1 against.
“What we also know about Costa Rica is that they are a technical, well organised group, playing a short passing game, who are able to penetrate into the penalty area and who are able to play one-v-one-s.
Later, Versleijen also intimated that there may be a couple of changes to his starting line-up for tomorrow-s match.
“Until now I haven-t told my line-up to the players so it-s a little difficult to tell here.
“Probably I will make one or two changes to the line-up to the one that started against Ecuador,” concluded Versleijen.
“Overall I was happy with my performance against Ecuador, but I was disappointed that I couldn-t hold, or sufficiently push away, the shot that lead to the goal,” said Birighitti.
“Obviously my goal tomorrow night is to keep a clean sheet which will go a long way towards us getting the necessary points to progress to the next round,” concluded Birighitti
The Qantas Young Socceroos will play their second match of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 against Costa Rica on Wednesday 3 August (kick-off 8pm local, 11am AEST Thursday 4 August) before their final group match against Spain on Saturday 6 August (kick-off 5pm local, 8am AEST Sunday 7 August).
The top two teams from each of the groups and the four third placed teams with the highest number of points will then progress to the round of 16 (9 & 10 August). The Quarter-Finals will be played on 13 & 14 August, Semi-Finals on 17 August with the Final and 3rd/4th place play-off on Saturday 20 August.
The Qantas Young Socceroos matches and the Semi-Finals and Final of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011 will be broadcast live on SBS TV (see www.sbs.com.au for broadcast details).