Petit asks Boavista to show humility to protect league leadership in Braga

Boavista will need to continue to maintain a low profile to defend their amazing unbeaten lead in the I Football League when they visit Sporting de Braga on Sunday for matchday six, admitted “checkered” coach Petit this Saturday.

“Are we a target to be shot down? No. I think our opponents look at us with a lot of respect for what we are doing in this good start to the season. Now we need to have the humility to want to continue to be a team. We were. We know it’s a marathon of matches and we want to score as many points as possible. We always discuss every game to achieve victory,” the coach emphasized at a press conference.

The Bessa club shares the lead in the competition with Sporting and Porto, but has a better goal difference, after equaling the highest-scoring start in its history already in the fifth round, with four wins and a draw, as happened in 1995 96.

“The pressure is daily and it shows in games and training. We know how difficult the next challenge will be. Sporting Braga comes from two negative results – one in the I League and the other in the Champions League – but we hope they are strong. Moreover, they have a lot of quality, good and experienced players in their squad, and they play at home,” he predicted.

Petit hopes to continue the trend of “good results and quality of play” patented by Boavista (the best attack of the tournament with 14 goals scored), which has been linked to unpaid wages and which FIFA prevented from registering new players in the last closed season.

“We have analyzed well and seen how we can use Sporting Braga and also the aspects in which they can create certain difficulties for us. As part of this, we will introduce ourselves well and discuss the three points. We know it’s a game. with certain high requirements, but we are not going to change our ambitions and lifestyle too much,” he said.

Unlike the Migno team, which lost away to Farense (3-1) in the previous round of the championship, and in the reception of the Italians from Napoles (2-1), in the opening round of Group C, the Panthers won the last two matches against Desportivo de Chaves (4-1) at the bottom.

“In the second half, there was a reaction from the opponent, but if you analyze the athletes in our squad, how many of them already went into the break leading 4:0? Maybe for many of them it was the first “. Time. There may have been some dizziness and relaxation. In the end, the players themselves felt that the second half did not turn out the way we wanted, but it is with the help of these details that we can improve,” he admitted.

Pedro Malheiro, a regular starter at right-back, suffered a muscle injury in the last match and will be out for “several weeks”, joining Cesar and Julio Dabo on the clinical report from which defender Filipe Ferreira left this message. a week. .

“Pedro Malheiro has been with us for a while, he knows what we want and had a good moment, but he had this setback. Now we have to rebuild it and hope that whoever plays in this position will show the same performance.” During the week, I try to speak loudly in training so that all athletes know what they need to do in a specific role if one day it becomes necessary,” said Petit, naming Luis Santos, Filipe Ferreira, Bernardo Conceição and Salvador Agra as candidates for this position.

Boavista, in the top three of the I League with 13 points, will face Sporting de Braga, in eighth place with seven, on Sunday at 20:30 at the Municipal Stadium of Braga, in a match for the sixth round, refereed by the association’s Arthur Soares Dias “Porto”.