Souza: First win is important and we are going through a renewal phase impartiality

A press conference was held in the conference hall of the Manawi Pasha Hotel with Helio Souza, coach of the Bahrain national team, who preceded the match between Al-Ahmar and his Qatari brother. Souza said: “The beginning is always important and difficult.” After implementing our plan and winning, we now have to work on what’s next.

Regarding the Qatar national team and the ambition of the tournament, Souza said: “We focus on the next meeting; we work for each meeting separately; we face a strong, young, middle-aged team with great experience; most of them participated in the World Cup and Copa America qualifiers and were in the West Asian final; we trust ourselves to win. We can’t talk now about the title.”

If some consider that our second place will not be good, this is a good thing that reflects the amount of confidence in the team. We focus on our work. Neighboring countries have stronger competition. We do not have professional players in Europe. I have a group that is doing a commendable job.

And about the renewal of ideas during the coming period: Of course we are working on innovation; we seek to build a new generation that gains experience by running many competitions; we stayed together for a long time; the last team was born in 1998; they need more experiences while they are with us and gain experiences; we are going through a stage of renewal.

On his vision of the Qatar national team, Souza said: “One match is not enough to know the opponent, but we have seen them before in the U-23 Championship, our victory over the UAE gives us a strong impetus, and we have not beaten them since 2010,” and “I always support the players to provide the best.”

The player, Jassim Al-Sheikh, said: “With the short time, we recovered after the first meeting.” We know the strengths and weaknesses of Qatar, and we are ready for the meeting.

And when asked about the supportive Iraqi audience, Jassim Al-Sheikh said: “I thank the Iraqi audience; we consider it our audience. We played in West Asia, and we enjoyed the Iraqi audience.”