João Henriques, coach of AVS, speaking in a flash interview with Sport TV, after the defeat against Sporting (3-2), after extra time, in the quarter-finals of the Portuguese Cup. Serious lesion of Antoine Baroan «Unfortunately, it is the first and last game of the season, for sure. The injury situation is really very serious. It's the main fact of this game. No matter how many positive things we can say, it is a negative and sad situation for us, but, above all, for the player. We were all, including the Sporting players, stunned by what happened, fortuitously, it wasn't a deliberate move. These are situations that, unfortunately, happen.” “Other than that, everything was positive for us. Obviously, we wanted to get through the tie and we couldn't, but we played a fantastic 90 minutes and this AVS team demonstrated that they have quality, they have an organized team, they know they have a purpose for each game. That's what we did. After losing 2-0, managing to draw in 90 minutes... we are the second team to come here and not let Sporting win in 90 minutes. This is very gratifying, it shows that AVS is ready to win games this season, wherever it may be. We changed a lot of players, because we had a game on Monday and a terrible week of training, we couldn't train with the water on the fields, training was interrupted at half an hour because it was impossible to train... We'll be ready to play on Monday with Famalicão. We leave here, apart from the misfortune with Antoine, with our heads held high and with a strong belief that we are on the right path and that the victory that this group, which has been suffering since the beginning of the season because it cannot achieve it, will happen naturally with this spirit, competitive attitude and competence.” Team spirit «It makes me feel more at ease, because it is an evolutionary process that we have had since we arrived. There has been this ability to change competitive attitude, to understand that the game doesn't end when a goal is conceded. In the championship game here, in Alvalade, AVS lost 6-0, I wasn't there, but I saw the game and the [problema do] AVS at that time was mainly mental, they were always organized until the 30th minute, but when they conceded the goal, they fell apart. Today, these same players believe, despite conceding a goal, that it is possible to turn things around. The team was brilliant, they worked well, they had a fantastic opportunity in the 95th minute and we could have been happier there. Sporting also had them during the match, but due to the timing it would give Sporting very little room for maneuver. But we were very happy with our performance and very confident about the future.” Non-championship focus «We are very focused on the remaining championship games, there are a lot of points up for grabs and we will win a lot of points, I have no doubt. We will be very focused game by game to do what we did today. As long as we can complete the tactical missions and have this competitive attitude, we will win games, earn points and, in the end, we will do the math.”
