By Joiner Martinez
04 Jul 2024, 19:17 PM EDT
Argentine coach Fernando Batista, coach of Venezuela, said on Thursday that with the start of the quarter-finals of the Copa América “a new tournament begins” in which the Vinotinto does not count on having a full victory.
“Now a new tournament begins, because you know that you cannot depend on a draw, on a result,” said the coach at a press conference at AT&T Stadium in Texas, where Venezuela will face Canada on Friday.
“We have had a very good group stage, almost perfect. We qualified but we didn’t achieve anything,” explained Batista, who said that having achieved the 9 points in the first phase “does not influence” the match against Canada, although he acknowledged that they are coming in with “confidence.”
Batista also referred to the possibility that the match could be decided in a penalty shootout if it ends in a draw.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” said the coach, explaining that it is not the desired scenario for the Vinotinto: “What we are going to propose and put together is a strategy of trying not to get to penalties and being able to decide the match in the 90 or 95 minutes.”
He also said that his team will practice penalty kicks during this afternoon’s training session in Dallas.
“We will work on it today. Because even though you can take a penalty in training, in a match it is totally different, but it is always good to practice it,” he said.
Regarding Canada, Batista said that they managed to qualify in a group that they shared with three CONMEBOL teams – Argentina, Chile and Peru – so they are not a weak rival.
“Their strength is more from the midfield forward. They are aggressive if they find the opponent in a bad position,” said Batista, who also highlighted the wing play of Jesse Marsch’s group.
The Venezuela-Canada game will kick off at 8:00 p.m. local time (01:00 a.m. Saturday GMT) at the Dallas Cowboys stadium.
The team that makes it to the semi-finals will face the winner of the Argentina-Ecuador match that takes place tonight.
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