Sonia Bermúdez: “It will be a very contested match, we will try to be very effective up front”

The national women’s soccer coach, Sonia Bermúdez, hopes that they can “execute the match plan well” this Friday against England, against which she predicts once again a “very disputed” duel in which they will have to “counteract all the records” that their rival manages and, above all, “be very effective up front” to be able to win by more than one goal and thus regain the leadership of the group in the qualifying phase for the World Cup in Brazil next year.

“I think playing at home is also important and we are going to have the support of the public, but at a tactical level, obviously, we want to execute the game plan well and from there try to win the three points,” said Sonia Bermúdez this Thursday at a press conference prior to the duel at the Estadi Mallorca Son Moix.

The coach does not forget that England has resisted them in recent games, but that “every game is different.” “It will be a very disputed, very even match. It is always decided by small details and we imagine a match like that. We know that we have to add the three points to achieve the objective we want, which is to go first to that much-desired World Cup,” he stressed.

Bermúdez appealed for “calm” in the face of the addition of having to win by more than one goal to regain first place. “We have had good days of training, all the players are available, so we are looking forward to Friday and making decisions about who is going to play. Each game is different, we all know it, and all the players know it, and we have to win no matter what,” he stressed.

“We want to play a good game, we are aware that we have to add three, not only these three, but also the others, so we are thinking only of England and giving everything we have to be able to win the game. We are all psyched that this is how it has to be to achieve the objective,” he continued.

The former player imagines that there will be “different match situations” because her rival “has players to dominate different registers, to come look for you, to lie low, to move around you.” “We will try to counteract that and, above all, try to be very effective up front because there we lacked a little efficiency in front of goal, to be able to correct those defensive situations,” he explained.

The coach acknowledged that “you try to polish everything you can” despite the fact that “there are not many days to work” and hoped that playing at home would help. “There they had the field in their favor and I hope that now we have the fans in favor and it will also be a boost to be able to give them encouragement that the players also need such important games,” he said.

The Madrid native did not want to advance her possible eleven at all and if Aitana Bonmatí, who returns after being injured in December, has a chance of starting. “We are delighted to have her. We know that she comes from a tough injury and we are happy to have her with us. Obviously you will have to wait for the game, we have one training session ahead of us,” he concluded.

Bermúdez once again praised her counterpart in England, Sarina Wiegman. “For me, she has the utmost respect, she is a reference. Whenever you ask me about her, she is an example to look at, she has achieved many things. Tomorrow we are rivals and I hope we can win,” he noted.

Spain will play in Palma and with four Balearic footballers in its ranks, among them a Lucía Corrales that it knows “perfectly.” “She is a player with a lot of speed and has earned day by day being in the national team, which is very complicated. What we always say about young girls, the difficult thing is not to get there, it is to stay, and they have a very nice challenge ahead of them,” he remarked.

Finally, the coach made it clear that they have experienced “very calmly” all the emotions that the Barça Femení players have been able to experience in recent days, but warned that “the club’s moment has passed” and that they are “very focused on the match against England.”