Vasco secured their place in the third round of the Copa do Brasil by beating Água Santa on penalties on Thursday night (7) in São Januário. After the match, assistant coach Emiliano Díaz praised the team’s performance in the first half, when they took a 2-0 lead. However, he strongly criticized the second half.
“We put in our best performance in 45 minutes since we arrived at Vasco. In the second half, we got involved in a style of play that wasn’t ideal, focusing on counter-attacks. I didn’t like it at all. We need to keep evolving, maintaining the rhythm of the first half and improving,” he said.
After qualifying, Ramón Díaz showed no great euphoria. The coach left for the dressing room without celebrating the penalty shootout victory. When asked, his son said that, as coaches, they don’t like winning in this way.
“The team has been working hard for seven months to reach a level that we’re aiming for and we’ve worked for it, but then we showed a completely different second half. We don’t like it. We need to replicate that first half for the full 90 minutes. As coaches, we don’t feel satisfied. In a different Vasco, with a different mentality, maybe we could celebrate like that. But we don’t like winning like that. We worked hard to win in a different way.”
Assistant sees learning curve for Vasco
Emiliano stressed that the learning from this match is that the team must play as they believe throughout the game. He again criticized the second-half performance, but valued the team’s resilience in reacting after conceding.
“After the game, there are always aspects to analyze and improve. The lesson we learned is that we need to play the way we believe in, as we did in the first half, and maintain that consistency throughout the match. Despite a disappointing second half, the team showed resilience. I’m disappointed, but I also value the strength of this group, even though I didn’t like what I saw in the second half,” he explained.
Emiliano Díaz revealed that he didn’t watch the penalties, something he avoids in all shootouts: “I don’t like to follow penalties, I never do. The team shows the character to suffer and react when necessary. We want to change that because we believe we deserved to go through in another way. We had a perfect 45 minutes. So we must continue on this path.”
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