by Malta and Portugal will meet for the first time at 18:30 tonight at the Centenary Stadium. Malta’s Rachel Cuschieri and Portugal’s Ana Borges’ responses suggest there is plenty of respect between the teams for each other’s trajectories, but both will take to the pitch determined to have a good showing. Coaches Manuela Tesse & Francisco Neto weighed in on the growth path of the two nations, while eyeing further success on the pitch tonight.
Pushing On From Initial Fixtures
The two teams head into the fixture with points in the bag from their first outings in the UEFA Women’s European Qualifiers. Malta secured a point in a goalless stalemate away from home soil against the Northern Ireland, while hot-favourites Portugal provided a show to their home support with a 3-0 victory over Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Asked on building from the performance against Northern Ireland, Malta’s Manuela Tesse is eyeing the match as an opportunity for growth, “The performance helped us to grow. Northern Ireland are a very strong team physically but I think we were resilient out of possession. We will start the match tomorrow with our system and we will not change just because we are playing against a strong team. This is another opportunity to grow. For us it is a privilege to play against Portugal and I hope that this match can be the start to show my players what the philosophy is, because I think Portugal is a very good team.”
The Maltese contingent are in a race against time on the condition of captain Emma Lipman and Alishia Sultana, both of whom were forced off early against the Northern Ireland. However, Tesse expressed faith in the squad to rise up to the challenge irrespectively.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s captain Ana Borges expressed the satisfaction in getting off to a winning start but is keeping feet on the ground when asked on its relevance toward the over-arching goal of a third consecutive qualification to the UEFA Women’s EURO finals. She said, “It was great to start with a win, but it won’t be worthwhile if we don’t continue to play our best and win the next games.”
Tesse & Neto On Growth
Portugal is a country that has steadily improved the women’s game over the past years to get to the point of consecutive qualification to the EURO and also had strong performances in the debut in the FIFA Women’s World Cup last summer. In parallel, domestic clubs have also been impressing on the European stage, lifting Portugal’s name in women’s football on every level.
On the other hand, although Malta still has a ways to go to get to Portugal’s current level, the island has been progressing in a positive direction as well. The national team most recently earned promotion into League B in an unbeaten manner, and continued earning positive results since. Additionally, at club level there are a number of players playing in the top European leagues, while domestically there have been some positive strides.
Asked whether she believes that Malta can take any learnings from Portugal’s path in enabling Malta to grow to the next rung, Manuela Tesse responded, “We are talking about a nation that has ten million inhabitants, so we cannot compare them to Malta which is a country of 500,000 people. I think we can only take some things from Portugal, mainly that they played the World Cup as underdogs but were able to get a draw against USA. So, I think as Malta we can try to take these kind of things, but I think as a national team we cannot choose from ten million players, so there is always a limit. I think it is too much to try to compare Malta to Portugal.”
Meanwhile, asked about key factors that he believes has allowed him and his team to grow steadily over the past decade since he took charge, Portugal’s Francisco Neto replied, “The growth of our national team is not a secret. We built a strong domestic league. At the same time we also have some girls playing in foreign leagues like Malta has. Then we take that and try to fight against all the teams with good organisation like Malta has. I think then it is about giving time and I think that is what makes the difference. If you give a coach who is making a strong program, as you have here in Malta, the results will come as you saw to go from League C to League B.”
Match Expectations
Malta’s Manuela Tesse is looking to exploit home advantage based on the familiarity with the stadium and the confines it provides. The Italian is looking for a spirited performance from her team, “We will have to defend more than against Northern Ireland for sure, but we will try to be strong and play our game nonetheless.”
Despite the strength of Portugal, Malta’s team features plenty of players who are experienced in such fixtures. Among them is Rachel Cuschieri, who expressed the importance of harnessing that experience to approach the match positively and without fear, “Certainly considering the experiences we had in the past, where we played against a lot of top countries, this game is nothing is different to me. We’ve played against the likes of Denmark and England, so we are aware that tomorrow is going to be a difficult game. However, nothing changes. Our mindset will still be to give a good performance and then assess the score at the end of the ninety minutes.”
Meanwhile, Portugal’s Francisco Neto is not underestimating the threat from Malta, “I am expecting Malta to be very organised without the ball, but I am sure that if we as Portugal give space, Malta will try to score. The head coach is doing an amazing job and after promotion from League C they got this amazing result against the strong team of Northern Ireland, so they have a lot of belief. I think if we are not humble enough to really fight well against Malta, we will have trouble because they are a good team with also good individual players.”
The two teams will walk onto the pitch at the Centenary Stadium at 18:30. Tickets for the match may be purchased online. The match will also be broadcast on TVM Sports+. The other match in group B3 will be played between Bosnia & Herzegovina and the Northern Ireland, with an afternoon kick-off at 15:30.
Lead Images: Dorienne Grech / Gualter Fatia
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