Diniz sees Fluminense acting differently to beat Colo-Colo: “We did what the game asked for” | fluminense

Watch Fernando Diniz and Manoel’s press conference after Fluminense’s victory over Colo-Colo

— Excellent defensive performance. He knew he wouldn’t have control of possession, he knew how to play the game and control the game. He knew how to adapt and played well in a different way than we are used to seeing. Despite having less possession, (Colo-Colo’s) scoring chances were few. […] Technically, the team didn’t play a good match, but, if you analyze the defensive aspect, which you criticize at times, aerial balls, dead balls, they did well. The main thing in the strategy was not to concede a goal and to dedicate as much effort as possible to marking. We knew how to play another type of game. In defensive performance, we did very well.

Diniz also praised defender Manoel, who scored Fluminense’s winning goal over Colo-Colo. He recalled the injuries, the knee surgery and the doping suspension to mention the importance of the player’s return.

— It’s a prize for Fluminense and Manoel. You know little about the players’ intimacy. He is one of the great professionals I have worked with in my life. It is very deserved. A guy who honors his profession. He trains with a hurting knee, we almost have to take him off the field. Manoel spent practically a year without playing football. We are faced with an example.

Colo-Colo 0 x 1 Fluminense | Best moments | 4th round | CONMEBOL Libertadores

At what point did you feel it was necessary to change the way you play?

— We knew in advance that we were going to receive a lot of pressure. Playing here is difficult. One thing that you sometimes don’t consider much and think it’s an excuse, but it isn’t: the fields are very different. Sometimes a field holds a lot, it’s very fast, it’s narrower, the crowd is closer. All of this interferes with the way you play. This field today was the opposite of Cerro. It was very fast, you saw that when they were going to apply pressure, they arrived very quickly, they gave a cart. We could have played a little more, in my opinion. But what was agreed was that, to avoid unnecessary risks, we lengthened most of the balls. That’s what the game asked for today.

— If we had been living in another moment in the season, with fewer changes, perhaps we would have taken advantage of it. When the marking goes up like they did, it creates a lot of spaces, which at other times we knew how to make better use of. Now is not the time for that. If you analyze last year’s team, with which we ended the year, we have practically five changes. Today Keno is returning, but it has not been used. We are without Keno, without André, without Nino, without Samuel Xavier and without John Kennedy. Last year, John Kennedy was either a starter in the last Libertadores games or came on in the second half. It’s a lot of change. And the game is very tactical. Sometimes, in detail, when a team has been playing together for longer and is more balanced, risk-taking becomes easier. Today I think we played the game we had to play, and the result was deserved.

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Difficulty operating in Santiago

— Playing here is very difficult, I think the fans are also to be congratulated. The fans put on a show today, they supported the team the entire time. I think Colo-Colo also played very well, they had already played well at Maracanã. (Jorge) Almirón is doing a great job here, playing differently than he played with Boca last year, which shows his repertoire. We knew how to play what the game was asking for. We had the humility to know how to defend ourselves and, when we had chances, we sometimes came with danger. When we had our opportunity to score a goal, we did so.

— It’s not very common for us to injure a player. At this time of year, we are experiencing a higher number of injuries than we are used to. Today it happened to Douglas Costa, Thiago Santos is recovering. There weren’t many muscle injuries. Muscle injuries, which we have a little better way to prevent, we have a slightly higher number than we usually have. Most of the injuries we have are very accidental injuries: joint injuries, knee injuries, Samuel (Xavier) had a fracture in his foot… It’s good that we made some signings that have given us support, André was also injured on the knee. We have a squad that knows how to respond to this type of need, I am very happy with the squad we have.

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