Benítez: "We won without conceding, perfect"

The Spaniard is committed to maintaining their positive spell

03/08/2014sscnapoli.it/rafabenitez.com

Imagen
Rafa Benítez, SSC Napoli head coach, was very satisfied with their victory against Slovan Bratislava (0-2) at the Stadiom Pasienky, in their second game of the UEFA Europa League group stage. This second consecutive win for the team appears to have broken the Neapolitan team ́s recent dynamic and has allowed them to obtain maximum points possible in the European competition so far: "I am very happy with my team ́s performance on the pitch. Once again we have won and have done so without conceding, we could say everything was perfect. Or almost, perfection is impossible, there is always margin for improvement".

Despite these positive results, the head coach of the Italian team noted that they have not yet qualified for the next round in the competition stating "I think there is still some time before we can feel that we have qualified for the next round, we must not rush. As I see it, there are still four more games to play in the group stages, we have to continue winning and it is not an easy task. As I always say, we work from game to game and we will need to keep an eye on the growth of the team. But in reality today we have seen the appropriate mentality right from the start of the game. I repeat the team has performed almost perfectly in a game which could have become complicated as time went on".

"Before the game we already knew that it was not going to be easy to play here, against Slovan at home and we spoke about this with the players. In fact there were some individual players in the local team that gave our defence problems, like in the case of Saoumah, Lasik o Milinkovic, these are players with great quality, especially in attack. But despite this, we managed to control the game from start to finish and score in the first half, a very important aspect in helping us win this game. Once again I repeat, we won and we did not concede, we should be very satisfied".

Marek Hamsik was without a doubt one of the protagonists of the game. The Slovakian player scored the first of the two goals in front of his compatriots to put them ahead in the 35th importance of this goal for Hamsik, Benítez praised his captain and assured that "Marek (Hamsik) is a very important element for us, I have said it many times and I will never tire of saying it. Today he has scored a very important goal and assisted the second goal scored by Higuain and he played really well. He was in the starting lineup today because of the great work he has been doing for the minute of the game. When asked about the team. He played in what was his old stadium and in front of his compatriots, for whom he is an idol. I am really happy with his work but also with the work of each and every one of the players that have played this game".

Finally the Spaniard looked to future focusing on their chosen path to victory and self confidence "the team has been quite relaxed on the pitch during the whole game, the players proved that they have gained more confidence and self esteem in their own possibilities. We have to continue this way, giving continuity to this style of play to ensure results. We will go out to win the next game, right now we have to look forward to our growth . We continue to believe that by maintaining the concentration and performance that we displayed today in Bratislava we will get to where we aim to be and get closer to our objectives this season" concluded the Spanish coach.