Before Spain - Portugal game - an interview with Iker Casillas

Watch the interview with Iker Casillas, who recalls the most recent match Spain played against Portugal. Back then they lost 4-0.

Cristiano is a fantastic player and my colleague, but now I support my teammates. Now we have a great time. With Torres, Fabregas... They also are great, every day.

Q: Do you fear anything in Portugal?

Everything. They have great team, the great player, they are in the semi-final of Euro. Two years ago we beat them in the round of 8 game on the World Cup. But some time later, in the same year, they defeated us 4-0 in Portugal. I think we are going to see a beautiful game.

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I think Casillas is going to be the strong side of his team. I hope Rui Patrício to be the same for Portugal.

Rui Patricio exchanged jersey with Petr Cech

Watch video interview with Rui Patricio after Czech Republic - Portugal quarterfinal game. Portugal won 0:1 and became the first semifinalist.

Translation:

Our goal was to advance to the semi-finals. We made it, the atmosphere is very good and thanks for everyone for that. Thanks to the victory everyone is happy and everyone had worked equally. Congratulations are owed to the whole group.

How does he feel about the victory over Petr Cech, who has been his idol for many years

He had congratulated us and in the end I exchanged jersey with him. I'm very proud, playing against him, because he is my idol.

Champions of Euro? First we have to think about the semi-final. It's going to be complicated. It's a dream of every player who is here on Euro to win the thropy.

Tytoń: the result was fair, but we can't be satisfied - video

Watch the video interview with Przemysław Tytoń after the Euro 2012 opening game Poland - Greece.

Przemek, please tell what is your general opinion of the game? You have seen a part of it from the bench and a part from the pitch.

In the first half we had a lot of occasions to score. We created a lot of them, used only one. Later, a red card for Greeks, perhaps we lost our concentration back then. When we started the second half, our game didn't look too good. Greece scored a goal, we wanted to create some situations, later a red card for us. It think that the result 1:1, the fact that we shared the points is fair for both teams, however, we cannot be fully satisfied, because we had a lot of opportunities in the first half.

How it is, when one comes on the pitch and in the first action defends a penalty shot?

Fantastic. But well, it was just a twist of events, it was only one game, next one is ahead. Euro hasn't finish yet.

It seems that you are going to be the first choice in the next game. Did you expect that Euro is going to look like that for you?

No. When I joined the team I wanted to fight for the place in the squad. The coach decided that Wojtek [Szczęsny] is going to play. I'm trying to give my support to all the others, as much as I can. Perhaps now I'm going to be given a chance. I want to create a history.

Postgame interview with Eduardo - 'We deserved more than one goal'

An interview with Eduardo after Portugal - Norway game.

"Taking into consideration how offensive had been playing I think we deserved more than one goal, but I'm happy with the victory. When the clean sheet is kept, we are more close to a victory and the team gets confidence. We showed it today. We had good defense and the attack created many situations to score. We had known that they were good when it come to set pieces. Fortunately we scored the goal we had needed. The result is fair. We could have scored more, but the victory was the most important."

Are you satisfied with your individual performance?

"It was the most important to win. When we didn't lost goals and fulfilled our work well, it was obvious we were satisfied and happy."

What about your future in Genoa? Are going to stay in the club?

"Yes, I still have two more years of the contract. I think I'm not going to move on earlier. But you never know if something doesn't change when it comes to professional terms. I feel good here, people treat me good, I hope to repay".

Source: Maisfutebol.

An interview with Beto after FC Porto - Benfica 3-1 game, Portuguese Cup, 20 April 2011

An interview with Beto, posted on PortuGOAL page.

In the semi-final of Portuguese Cup Benfica won first game 0:2, but in the second leg game Porto was better. They won 3-1 in Lisbon and advanced to the final.

“Benfica started the game with an advantage of two goals but we believed it was possible to win here, and it was a champions’ win. At the end of the 90 minutes we proved we are one of the best teams in Europe playing football now,” said Beto.

(...)

As for his individual situation at the newly crowned champions, the 28-year-old Lisbon born stopper admitted he would like to play more, but the fact he is not first choice has not dimmed his international ambitions.

“I would like to play more, but Porto has three great goalkeepers and only one can play. The most important thing is that I am ready to play any game – cup, championship, UEFA – everything. [The national team?] Yes, a return to the national team is one of my targets, one of my objectives.”

Read the full article here: link

You can also hear an audio recording of the interview and Beto talking in English link

Interview with Quim after Braga - Benfica game

Found this short interview with Quim which he gave shortly after Braga - Benfica game: link.

He said he is happy that Braga made to the final of the European League and that it is very important for him. They played against his former team, Benfica. He said also that they are no favorites in the final and to win they have to play like they did in the semi-final.

Video interview with the coach Bogdan Wenta after Croatia - Poland match

Wenta: brakuje mi w tej grupie człowieka, który to pociągnie

Before the game against Serbia there was such silence in the dressing room... There was a change later, but today... On the morning walk, on the meeting before the game the mood was full of optimism.

For Croats it was a game for everything, and it was the same for us. We commited mistakes in this match, we suffered a break down. It seems that this group lacks the leader, someone who will inspire the others. Sometimes Grzesiu [Tkaczyk] plays this part but he was ruled out by an injury. Sławek [Szmal] is a great figure, showed it today through his great performance, but we can't expect that he is going to cover the goal completely, save everything and we are only going to score.

It was a series of easy mistakes again. It's a bit embarassing. If it is only unused clear situation, the team can't be really blamed for it. If it repeats three or four times in the row the player can be always changed. But it's puzzling that in simple situations we are losing the ball or passing it straight in the hands of an opponent. Those throws are intended to be so easy just in purpouse to start the game well, to face the opponent. Today we expected that they are going to wait what we are going to do. There were good moments, we had postions to score. When we hesitated for a while, tried to slow down on the back, there were counter-attacks.

I know the Croatian team's way of playing by heart. To sum up today they also didn't play anything different than usual. But it worked out, they were more effective or perhaps they commited less mistakes, or, I don't know, the spectators were more favourable for them because thay are among the top teams not only for the last four years but for ten, right? Well, it's a certain advantage.

They say... Well, today Croats had a few players from Bundesliga in the squad... But in the backstage people generally say that players playing in Bundesliga are more tired that the others. But then again, it's standing in the front of the cameras and saying what we all want to hear.

We are the group where there is sixteen players and the coaching staff, so it's obvious that as in every group they are friendships but they are also anthypaties. Someone likes someone else more, someone is irritated by someone's else behaviour. We are together for nearly a month so you can be annoyed just by seeing the t-shirt another person is wearing or beg my pardon what is served for the breakfast or what hour we are drinking coffee. It's normal. Add stress to this to get the picture. If you win matches, everything is okay, the cooperation goes well. Even if something is not quite right... Like today in Grabarczyk's case. I have a lot of admiration for him, because it had seemed he was injuried and yet he managed to play quite well.

22nd Men's Handball World Championship - Croatia - Poland 28:24 (13:11), postgame video interview with Piotr Wyszomirski and goalkeepers match stats

Postgame interview with the deputy goalkeeper Piotr Wyszomirski after Crotia - Poland game. His performance as well as Sławomir Szmal's belongs to the few positive sides of that game.

Szmal saved 42% of shots (15 of 36 attempts). He saved also two penalty shots and sucesfully stopped opponents in situations one to one a few times.

Wyszomirski replaced Szmal in 42'. He saved 46% of shots (6 of 13), one penalty shot and managed to save a shot in one to one situation.

But a goalkeeper can't win a game alone...

Wyszomirski o porażce z Chorwacją: coś pękło, zeszło z nas powietrze

It was really an important match for us, as if it was the final. We were fighting for the qualification to the Olympic Games. We are going to play another final two days later. We will see how it's going to turn out. I think we lacked the spirt, everyone had had a different expectations in the first place. We arrived on those Championships with other plan.

Something went wrong, we lacked the consequence in the attack and commited stupid mistakes in the defence. We had to chase the result again and that cost us dear. We were not able to catch up with the result and we lost.

Question: In your opinion that game could be won?

I think so. At the beggining Croats were very nervous. We also didn't look the best, but we lead the game at the beginning of the first half. So I think that if our counter-attacks had been sucessful and we had scored we would have had a chance. We could get clear lead and they would have to chase the result. I think we could have won this match.

22nd Men's Handball World Championship - Croatia - Poland 28:24 (13:11), postgame video interview with Sławomir Szmal

Szmal: w poprzednie mecze wkładaliśmy dużo serca. Dziś tego nie było

Szmal: We lack the spirit. It's as if something died down in us. We play without a faith in ourselves, in our team. In such moments it's as if we had already lost. It could be clearly seen in the second half when we were playing but without faith, simply speaking... Well, it's hard to judge it now.

Journalist: So what had happened with this fight? Because we come here with great hopes but we lost three of four matches against top teams.

Szmal: Well, with great hopes. For sure we come here to fight as we had said. No one did say that we came here with an intention to give up. I think that up to this moment we put our heart into the games. There were of course weak matches, when we didn't play the best but we really put our heart into them. I think we can't say the same today.

Journalist: I'm under an impression that today, first time since a long time, Croats were within the reach. That's why it hurts even more.

Szmal: Well, I think that they played in their own style. They worked out good situations to score and here Piotrek [Wyszomirski, the deputy goalkeeper] deserves to be praised. Also the defence in the first half was good, the lads were fighting. Unfortunately, there were too much counter-attacks in the second half and it's always disheartening for a goalkeeper.

Journalist: We are on the fourth place in this group. This means "a game of everything" awaits us, because the seventh place on the tournament guarantees us a right to play in the elimination for the Olympic Games. The eighth will not.

Another journalist: It's as if it was a final.

Szmal: Actually it was also a final today. If we had won today we needn't to worry any more. We would play for the fifth place. Unfortunately we didn't managed to win. I hope we will pull ourselves together and we are going to play a good game.

Journalist: Most likely it's going to be Hungary. So it's an opponent which is theoretically weaker. Seems we are going to be the favourite.

Szmal: On those Championships we can't really judge who is weaker or not. As we had said before we should think about ourselves, belive in ourselves and give 100 per cent of ourselves.

Video interview with the coach Bogdan Wenta after Denmark - Poland match

MŚ piłkarzy ręcznych. Wenta po meczu z Danią [WIDEO]

We made a lot of changes in the first half but we lacked the effectiveness. Our playing sheme was too plain. In the second was more work and running, Tomek Tłuczyński scored, Lisek [Patryk Kuchczyński] scored, to cut long story short we started playing. We stopped thinking too much, we started playing how we are able to do. However, we are not always sucessful. I hadn't take the timeout because I though that we had a chance to tie the game and that it will be needed before the last action.

But when there was the last 16 seconds they didn't even give us a chance to touch the ball.

But that free-throw when Mariusz tried to pass the ball to the pivot... We shouted that he should pass to Zarek [Mateusz Zaremba]. We didn't counted too much on Zarek and perhaps he would be able to score... but... It didn't work anyway. What to add more? To be honest I will say that despite the fact the game was lost, there is a lot of interesting things to study. You have seen the game too so for sure you have a lot of thoughts about it, you can ask about many things. But sometimes one has to ask people, because it's a team game and everyone is important, every decision of the referee is also important, every decision how to play in the defence and in the attack is important too. And today I think... We can again, as we often do in Poland, ponder about 'what could happen if the things were different'.

It turns out that it's not as good as it could be, but it's also not as bad.

22nd Men's Handball World Championship - Poland - Sweden 21:24 (12:14), video interview with Sławomir Szmal

After a hard, exhausting and even game Sweden won with Poland 24:21.

Postgame interview with Polish goalkeeper Sławomir Szmal, whose amazing saves allowed to keep up Poland's hopes to tie the game. Unfortunately too much mistakes in the attack didn't allowed to sucessed one more time.

Sweden, as well as Poland and Argentina qualifed to the second round of the Championships. In the group they are going to play against Serbia, Croatia and Denmark.

Szmal: Zabrakło koncentracji i woli walki

Our plan was to play aggressively because we know the opponent, we had know that the main threat are Andersson and Kaellman. We were suppoused to play offensive and harshly. Unfortunately, they managed to come off on good postions. We commited a number of mistakes in attack and they answered with counterattacks. In today's match we lacked consistency and the will to win. We had a real chance to win today with Swedes on their home soil, watched by 12 000 audience.

We had a few situations when we had a one man advantage but we didn't used it. Normally we should win in such moments by scoring two goals. There was a situation when we had a chance to tie the game but unfortunately we were losing the ball. Against such a opponent on their home soil it's impossible to win a game.

Having such an audience, when Swedes fans were cheering for their team, there were moments when only the Polish supporters could be heard. It should give us strength but unfortunately in those crucial moments we failed.

'We saw the Fabianski we see in training', said Arsene Wenger

Quote from a post-game interview with Arsenal's coach Arsene Wenger, after
Chempions League Partizan Belgrad - Arsenal match.

"Fabianski had a good game, we have seen the player tonight who we see in training. He had a faultless game. I know it is in him. He got it out in the game tonight and hopefully that will give him the needed belief and confidence. I am confident he will come out as a great keeper, I have always said that. We have to keep confidence in him and he needs to gain experience from games like this. At the moment Almunia is injured, we will have to see how his injury goes but at the moment it is too early to say."


Source: Arsenal.com page.

Euro 2012 qualifiers: post-game interview with Eduardo

Interview with Eduardo after Portugal - Cyprus game. Quoted after PortuGOAL.net:

“We have to admit our mistakes and lift our heads. There are more games ahead and we have to learn from our mistakes. During the World Cup things went well at the back, but today they didn’t. We’re going to Norway to win. It will be an important game for us. We now have extra responsibility after dropping points at home.”

Read the interviews with other players at PortuGOAL.net.

Eduardo, interview from PortuGoal.net

Found a short interview with Eduardo, posted at 2th of September at PortuGOAL.net page.

“Obviously we would have preferred everything to be calmer, but we are confident and we will do everything to win the first games. We have to follow our leader (Oliveira) and not think about anything else.”

“The aim is to make a winning start and avoid the repetition of past mistakes. What happened in the last qualification campaign cannot be allowed to happen again. There are a lot of new faces, it’s true. But the ambition is the same. We have quality and a huge desire to do good things.”

Source: PortuGOAL.net

Considering how Portugal did start the qualifiers, with 4-4 draw in a game against Cyprus, which for sure is not a team from the top, one can have only bad feelings. Portugal just did what they should not did - they started the qualifiers with repetiting all the past mistakes...

Ricardo: "I want to finish my career in Portugal", video

Found this shor video interview with Ricardo when I was looking at sapo.pt for videos about todays Portugal's qualifier (4-4 with Cyprus, no comment!).

He said that he is certain he want to finish his career in Portugal ("acabar a sua carreira em Portugal, quase de certeza") and that Sporting and Boavista will always be close to his heart - "vão ficar sempre no seu coração".

Pity that he didn't move this summer or at least went on the loan. He loses his time in Betis and he is not getting any younger...

Legia - Arsenal post-game interview with Łukasz Fabiański, video and translation

How do you like idea of learning foreign language by watching video interviews with players and reading translations? I catched some Spanish and Portuguese that way, thanks to Monica08's translations. Can recognize some words now.

Here's post-game interview with Łukasz Fabiański, Arsenal's goalkeeper, given after Legia - Arsenal game which was at last Saturday, provided with translation. An occasion to catch some Polish, perhaps?

Wenger do Fabiańskiego: bye, bye!

The question is inaudible. Most likely it's about what Fabiański thinks about Legia performance in the match.

W ofensywie super, w defensywie... Powiem tak, przez ten pierwszy okres, pierwszą połowę, myślę, że narzucili wysokie tempo. - Great in the attack, but in the defence... I say, in this first part, in the first half, I think they put us under a lot of presssure.

Says "give us some space" and "bye, bye" to Arsene Wenger, Arsenal's coach, who passes by. Fabiański splited up with the team. He didn't came back with rest to London, as he is called-up for the friendly Poland - Cameroon.

Narzucili wysokie tempo w pierwszej połowie, chociaż sądzę, że my też również jako zespół nie za dobrze rozpoczęliśmy to spotkanie, tę pierwszą połowę. - They made the game very fast in the first half, but I think that we, as the team, we didn't start this match too well, this first half.

Natomiast druga połowa, Legia już mimo wszystko chyba trochę opadła z sił pod względem fizycznym i my to jakoś wykorzystaliśmy. - On the contrary the second half, when Legia started losing strenghts, the shape, we made use of it.

Mecz stał się bardzo otwarty. - The match (game) became very open.

Padło jedenaście bramek. - Eleven goals were scored.

Another question almost inaudible. Seems that the journalist asks if he is happy of his performance.

Nie, no wiadomo, że druga bramka... Co do pierwszej, co do trzeciej... Ktoś mi podstawił nogę, nie wiem czy to był mój zawodnik, czy... - Well, about that second goal... That first one, and the third one... Someone tripped me up, I don't know if it was my own player, or... [I think it was one of Arsenal players, it seems so in the video highlights]

Później rozmawiałem z sędzią, sędzia mówił, że zostałem przyblokowany. Mówię, że nie zostałem przyblokowany, bo ruszyłem do piłki i w ostatnim momencie ktoś mi po prostu podstawił nogę. - I talked to the refeere later. The refeere told that I was blocked. I said I was not blocked, I rushed to clear the ball and in the last moment someone had just tripped me up.

Więc to na pewno kładzie cień na moją grę w dzisiejszym spotkaniu, natomiast te dwie pierwsze... Znaczy, pierwsza i trzecia bramka... ciężko było cokolwiek zrobić. - Well, for sure it casts shadows on my today's performance, but those two first goals... I mean, that first and third goal... It was hard to do anything.

'It was 1800 days of cold, wind and rain", says Artur Boruc

"It was 1800 days of cold, wind and rain", said Artur Boruc, when asked about his time at Celtic Glasgow by Scottish media. "But seriously, it was a great time".

"Celtic and its fan will always stay close to my heart. This club is a part of me now, just like my family and my fiancée. It was a great honor to play for Celtic."

"I think that playing for Fiorentina is a chance for me, to develop my skills. I came here to be the goalkeeper, I have no indention of declaring I will do this or that, blah, blah, blah. It's easy to give promises. Instead of talking, I prefer playing. The quality of my performance should speak for itself.

Brazil team arrived in Rio

Julio Cesar was amongst a host of Brazil squad members to return home in the early hours of Sunday morning and on arrival at Rio airport he was overcome with emotion as the press and fans that turned up gave him a positive welcome.

He said: "I am very excited. I thank the Brazilian fans. It is the result of three-and-a-half years of work. The team rescued the love of the fans for the national team."

After emerging through the throng of press men, the Brazil number one joined his mother in a waiting car and the footage below clearly shows him crying again, simply overwhelmed with emotion.

Source: Goal.com.

Read full article here: link.

Post-game interview with Eduardo

Eduardo, the goalkeeper of the national team, analyzes the defeat by Spain in 1/8 finale of the World Cup 2010 and talks about his future.

“It was hard to take", he says. "Given the quality that this team had, we could have gone further. We gave everything but we couldn’t do it.

Asked if he is happy with his individual performance:

"Am I happy with my performance? The performance is of the whole team. Individuals are of secondary importance, so I can’t be happy now."

"I feel I did my work and lived up to my expectations. We all know we gave everything we had. It’s frustrating. We can only be disappointed."

About the future:

“People were waiting to see how I will be doing at the World Cup. It’s normal. We will see if it opened any new doors. It’s very important stage of my life, let’s see what is going to happen”

What Queiroz did say in the dressing room:

"He told us thanks for everything".

Source: http://www.maisfutebol.iol.pt/.