The Spaniard praised his team’s achievements in recent years, saying Qatar need time to excel at a demanding tournament like the World Cup.
“We should give credit to players because of their achievements. They became the champions of Asia [2019] and went deep in tournaments like the Gold Cup and Arab Cup [reaching semi-finals in both competitions last year]. The players will keep on fighting to represent their country at the best level,” he said.
“I don’t feel disappointed or embarrassed because we are a country of small population and this is our first Word Cup. We are slightly behind in this demanding tournament,” said Sanchez, before adding that the squad was distancing itself from the criticism that followed back-to-back defeats.
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“People are free to criticise but we have distanced ourselves because it never helps and you lose the focus,” he added.
Qatar coach also defended Al Annabi’s preparation plan for the World Cup which saw players train in isolated camps offshore for more than four months.
Sanchez said he will not change anything if he were to go back in time to before the start of the World Cup.
“If I go back in time? It’s easy to talk about things after it’s over,” said the 46-year-old.
“I think we have prepared in the best possible way, but everything has to be considered in perspective, we have been working with this group for a long time,” he added.
Qatar striker Almoez Ali, meanwhile, said his team was “unlucky” against Senegal despite making several attempts to score as he hoped to score his first World Cup goal today.
“We wanted to make our fans happy but we didn’t manage to win. This is our first World Cup but hopefully not the last. We will try to give a strong performance in our last match,” said Almoez.
“I will be focusing to score in the match as we are looking to go out of the tournament with some goals,” said Almoez, who was the top scorer in Asian Cup and the Gold Cup.
Netherlands’ players take part in a training session at the Qatar University. AFP
Today, a draw will be enough for the Netherlands – who defeated Senegal 2-0 and drew against Ecuador 1-1 – to ensure qualification in the last 16 stage, but coach Louis van Gaal said the Dutch side would play to win the group.
“Tomorrow, we are focusing on a victory to qualify as group winners,” the Dutch coach told reporters.
“If you want to become a world champion you need to beat all the teams,” he said while responding to a query regarding possible Round of 16 opponents.
Van Gaal said his team must bring improvement in ball possession and decision-making after a draw against Ecuador, terming Qatar match a different challenge.
“Each and every match is difficult and the same applies to Qatar [match]. We have an excellent squad. We have four points. The last match we didn’t play as good as we could so we spoke about that,” he said.
Frenkie de Jong said his team must perform well against Qatar to avoid any shock like wins for Saudi Arabia and Japan against Argentina and Germany respectively.
“Both squads are organised and if you are not on top you have already seen in the tournament what happens. Against Ecuador we were simply not good enough. We couldn’t find spaces and we made many technical mistakes,” said the Barcelona midfielder.
When: Today at 6:00pm
Where: Al Bayt Stadium
Capacity: 68,895
Key stats:
– Netherlands need a win or a draw to qualify to the last 16 for the 11th time regardless of the result between Senegal and Ecuador.
– If Netherlands lose they will qualify directly to the second round if Ecuador beat Senegal, but if Senegal win the goal difference or fairplay tiebreaker will decide second place in the group.
– Netherlands never won the title but were runners-up three times in 1974, 1978 and 2010.
– Qatar were the first team to be eliminated from the finals, and it was only the second time that a host country exited the tournament in the first round after South Africa in 2010.
– Qatar will try to avoid being the first host country to fail to win a game in the finals.
– Mohammed Muntari made history when he scored Qatar’s first World Cup goal in the 3-1 defeat by Senegal.
Previous meetings:
This will be the first meeting between the sides.
