Fluminense coach Fernando Diniz praised the team’s effort against Manchester City despite the 4-0 defeat in the Club World Cup final. The Brazilian’s suffered the first goal before the one minute mark, which made the game a lot less difficult.
“The team was Fluminense from the beginning to the end of the year. We got the best team in the world in the last five years, with a lot of ability to define. We conceded a goal very early. We conceded the second goal with everyone behind, we couldn’t take it. The team tried to play, played under high pressure all the time and managed to come out most of the time. Congratulations to the team, they lost to a great team and now it’s time to think about next season,” said the Tricolor coach.
“We don’t always have the opportunity to play against teams of this quality. The more you play, the more you have a chance to learn and improve, but we will continue to improve even if we only play against teams of this quality a few times.”
“If you say that there was defensive failure, it was the whole team. It also happened against Al Ahly, the players behind ended up saving us at times. We knew we couldn’t give any gaps in the defensive system because they take advantage of it very well. Most of the time, we managed to fit the defensive lines well and when we fail once or twice, they end up taking advantage and they are very accurate”, evaluated the coach.
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Nino says this was a magical year
Fluminense’s captain and main man in defense, Nino said that Fluminense had a few moments in which they were better and the main feeling was that this was a magical year.
“(City) is a team prepared to play big games like this, they are used to these moments. It’s very difficult to say just one factor that decided the outcome. The game goes through many moments, in some moments we were better. We had a wonderful year, a magical year and nothing will erase what we did here. We played with a lot of desire and a lot of commitment. Everyone was together the whole time.”
