{"id":16305,"date":"2022-03-19T15:01:59","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T15:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos"},"modified":"2022-03-19T15:01:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T15:01:17","slug":"winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos","title":{"rendered":"Winning World Cup playoffs my most important challenge as Portugal coach, says Santos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mozambique. <\/strong><\/span>Portugal coach Fernando Santos described the World Cup playoffs as the most important challenge of his time in charge as he announced his squad on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Portugal will play Turkey on March 24 in Porto with the winners to face either Italy or North Macedonia five days later in a game that will determine one of the last three spots left for European teams at Qatar 2022, which kicks off in November.<\/p>\n

Veteran Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo was named in the 25-man squad that will start their preparation on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simple: we need to win, nothing else matters,\u201d Santos told a news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most important challenge I had as Portugal manager. Not the most difficult, the most important. We must be in the World Cup for our people. The tickets were sold-out in minutes more than a month ago. Our fans will be a major factor and we can\u2019t let them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his eight years as Portugal manager, Santos won the 2016 European Championship and reached the last-16 at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.<\/p>\n

The coach is confident that his team, who dropped into the playoffs after losing their final group stage qualifier to Serbia, can go through if they keep their cool.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in this spiral of drama that is not positive for us,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost one game in the last seven games. There were things that didn\u2019t go well, but we just didn\u2019t win a game against Serbia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very upset about that, but now it\u2019s about taking what was positive and win again. Talent wins games, but a team wins championships. Players know that and they are in the right mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Squad:<\/p>\n

Goalkeepers: Rui Patr\u00edcio (Roma), Anthony Lopes (Lyon), Diogo Costa (Porto).<\/p>\n

Defenders: C\u00e9dric Soares (Arsenal), Diogo Dalot (Manchester United), Jo\u00e3o Cancelo (Manchester City), Gon\u00e7alo In\u00e1cio (Sporting Lisboa), Jos\u00e9 Fonte (Lille), Pepe (Porto), Nuno Mendes (Paris St Germain), Raphael Guerreiro (Borussia Dortmund).<\/p>\n

Midfielders: Danilo (Paris Saint Germain), R\u00faben Neves (Wolves), William Carvalho (Betis), Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United), Jo\u00e3o Moutinho (Wolves), Matheus Nunes (Sporting Lisboa), Ot\u00e1vio (Porto), Bernardo Silva (Manchester City).<\/p>\n

Forwards: Andr\u00e9 Silva (Leipzig), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United), Diogo Jota (Liverpool), Gon\u00e7alo Guedes (Valencia), Jo\u00e3o F\u00e9lix (Atletico Madrid), Rafael Le\u00e3o (Milan).<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mozambique<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mozambique. Portugal coach Fernando Santos described the World Cup playoffs as the most important challenge of his time in charge as he announced his squad on Thursday. Portugal will play Turkey on March 24 in Porto with the winners to face either Italy or North Macedonia five days later in a game that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":16304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[233,281,283],"class_list":["post-16305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mozambique","tag-mozambique"],"yoast_head":"\nWinning World Cup playoffs my most important challenge as Portugal coach, says Santos - Mozambique<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Portugal coach Fernando Santos described the World Cup playoffs as the most important challenge of his time in charge as ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Winning World Cup playoffs my most important challenge as Portugal coach, says Santos\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Portugal coach Fernando Santos described the World Cup playoffs as the most important challenge of his time in charge as ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mozambique\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-19T15:01:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/sites\/64\/2022\/03\/img-6235f01e412b9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"631\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Winning World Cup playoffs my most important challenge as Portugal coach, says Santos\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-19T15:01:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos\"},\"wordCount\":413,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/sites\/64\/2022\/03\/img-6235f01e412b9.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Mozambique\",\"Mozambique\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/winning-world-cup-playoffs-my-most-important-challenge-as-portugal-coach-says-santos\",\"name\":\"Winning World Cup playoffs my most important challenge as Portugal coach, says Santos - 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