San Marino is no longer a ‘Cinderella’. Costantini: “We can have our say.”
A gritty, proactive and well-positioned San Marino national team was seen at Tardini
Disappointed with the result, totally exaggerated, but proud of the game exhibited by his boys. San Marino’s coach Fabrizio Costantini, at the microphones of Sportal.it, commented in the press room on the defeat at the ‘Tardini’ in Parma with Kazakhstan. Which won 3-0, but which, especially in a very balanced first half (but even the second half was certainly not a guest monologue), had to reckon with a gritty, proactive and well fielded team by its helmsman.
“Usually three such goals you concede in an entire championship, they are also difficult to tell to those who did not witness the match,” Costantini stressed. “Unfortunately, the first one came because of a mistake that can happen but at these levels you pay a lot. We played a very good game against a team that recently defeated Denmark and changed form throughout the match, because my guys were proactive and did not let themselves be crushed at all. Mine were also good in not getting down after the disadvantage goal and continuing to do what they had done before. The statistics say that we had 50 percent possession of the ball in the first half, there were no saves by Benedettini, and with a little luck we could have even taken the lead. In the second half came a penalty kick, for which our opponents had not even protested, and the third goal, in the midst of the recovery, due to a fortuitous deflection.”
San Marino is no longer a ‘Cinderella’ of European and world soccer: the signal that came from Parma was loud and clear and confirmed the growth of the ‘Titans’. “I’m happy that this message is starting to get through outside, that is, that we can play the starts with everyone,” continued the former coach of Fiorentino, Juvenes/Dogana and Murata: in Slovenia we conceded a goal in the 60th minute, even with Northern Ireland we played well. With anyone we can have our say. Now we go to Finland, we do not start beaten, albeit aware of the value of the Scandinavians, but we will play it: it almost scares me to tell the boys that we can repeat the performance exhibited with Kazakhstan, given the result. Right now we are not lucky, but as I always tell the boys, you have to go looking for luck. And to them I also say that we are no longer a ‘Cinderella’, the fact that the results show this means that we are working well: of course the qualifiers for the European and World Cups are tough and maybe we will wait for the Nations League to pick up something more, but we tried with the Kazakhs and we will try in Finland as well.”
“It was an honor to go up on the Tardini turf, for the boys it was an extra spur: if we had scored it would have pleased also those who allowed us to play in this important facility and whom we want to thank,” Costantini concluded.
