A candid Brazil coach Carlos Amedeu admitted on Saturday that their third-place clash against Mali was the worst game they played in the two and half years of preparation for the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Brazil won 2-0 but the coach said both the goals came from fortuitous circumstances and that the players lacked motivation as the team failed to win the semi-finals against England.
"Today we had our worst game in this World Cup. This was our worst match in all over two and half years of preparation," Amadeu told reporters at the post-match press conference.
"We were lucky due to three incidents. First defender lost the ball and Alan got space. Then the goalkeper made that error. Mali had a great team also, they had shots on goal all over competition," the 52-year old added.
The Brazil players lacked the urge to fight it out on the field as it was a third-place game with only consolation prize to look forward to, the coach said.
"First of all, we have to look at Mali who made a great game. Their style of coaching is really good. We have to watch ourselves. We always want to win and we have this culture that if we lose the semi-final we want to leave. The players lacked motivation," he said.
"Today I told them they could be here for final. But they (fans) want to see Brazil play so I asked them to give their best."
Amedeu's Mali counterpart Jonas Komla rued the wasted opportunities, adding that goalkeeper Youssouf Koita was only human to commit that gaffe that led to Alan's opener.
We had a nice match. Happy with the way we played. We could not score goals despite getting so many chances and Brazil took the opportunities and scored," Komla said.
"He (Koita) is human. Humans make errors. After that also we had our chances to score but this is hard luck," he added.
--IANS
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