“Whoever reaches the quarter-finals has to aim to get as far as possible and the furthest possible is to reach the final and, obviously, propose themselves as a candidate for victory. Only eight selections remain. Some time ago I said that the objective was to place Angola in the ‘top 10’ in Africa, we are currently in the quarter-finals, within the eight best teams”, he noted.
The Portuguese coach, who can forever write his name in the history of Angolan football, if he qualifies Angola for an unprecedented semi-final, knows that this objective and the desire to reach and win in the final is only possible if his team starts with beat Nigeria.
“Nigeria is a colossus of African football, although it had some difficulties before the African championship. But, what is certain is that Nigeria is an African colossus full of talented players, many of them playing in the Premier League or reference leagues in Europe, such as the Italian League and Portuguese League, including”, he said.
According to Gonçalves, at the moment the Nigerian team has one of the best players in the world, Victor Osimhen.
“I myself, in the FIFA votes, also voted for him as one of the best players in the world, so we will play against a team with players with a lot of talent, who have tremendous, mind-boggling playing ability, a lot of speed, especially derived from of the two forwards, Osimhen and Lookman, who, in fact, add great vertigo to the game. On the other hand, he has played with three very robust central defenders who are extremely adapted,” he admitted.
Regarding Angola's qualification for the 'quarters', after a 3-0 victory over Namibia, the Portuguese coach said that his team has been able to overcome obstacles, and cited the expulsion of goalkeeper Neblú, in the 16th minute, as example.
“Yesterday’s game [Sábado] was no exception to our performance. We achieved, in a game that ended up having critical episodes, to which we managed to respond well, namely the fact that we were left with one less element even at an early stage of the match, […] a very well achieved adaptation. The ideas were well interpreted from that moment on and, in fact, we managed to be superior to a Namibian team with a different style to ours, but we came out on top and with a very positive performance”, he highlighted.
Pedro Gonçalves recalled that the Angolans did not believe that the working group under their orders would reach the 'rooms'.
“No one would have thought we would be here at this moment, however, we within the team felt our potential, we knew our growth and our consistency. Occasionally, our performance may have been a surprise to the outside world, but for us, it certainly wasn’t”, he guaranteed.
The Portuguese coach regretted, on the other hand, the little and late financial support made available by the State and which, in a way, had some negative influence, before and during CAN2023.
“We overcame a series of setbacks that are competitors with high sporting performance, as it is not normal for a team with high sporting performance to go through a series of situations that we experience and that greatly affect sporting performance. When people see us on the field, they cannot imagine everything we have been through, because they have seen a competitive team that seeks victory. Despite everything, we have followed a very honest, very transparent path and we are always very determined, even when setbacks have arisen”, he concluded.
Angola and Nigeria face each other on Friday, in Abidjan.
