2024-04-06 04:32:31
The head coach of the women’s national football team, Silvia Radojska, expressed her satisfaction with the 1:0 victory over Kazakhstan in the first European qualifier. At the end of the first half, Simona Petkova brought success with her accurate shot. In a special interview for BTA, she told how the meeting in Almaty went, and also indicated the important factors to reach success.
Group C4 hosts Armenia on April 9, and in June the program offers two matches with Romania. The qualifiers are played in a Nations League format, with the winner of Group C4 moving up one level for the next edition, and also continuing into the second round of qualifying for a place at Euro 2025 in Switzerland. The Romanian girls have already given their request that they will be Bulgaria’s main rival for the 1st place with their emphatic 5:0 victory over Armenia today.
“We have a very tough trip to Bulgaria ahead of us with a long layover at the airport in Istanbul, so we will return to Sofia very late. I hope this will not affect the recovery for the second game. The best and positive thing is that we got a result, the victory and the good start of the European qualifiers, which was extremely important for me, for the whole staff and most of all for the girls. I hope that this way they will gain more confidence, self-confidence for the next matches that are coming up – the one with Armenia in Sofia and the two in the summer with Romania,” Radojska began.
“The game in Kazakhstan was very dynamic, but for the most part our team had the initiative, were looking for the win all the time. I think we were more assertive throughout the 90 minutes and added time. We were the team that played football and tried through purely football situations to create chances and score in this way. We had a problem with the last pass in the opponent’s half and because of that we did not score a goal earlier. Otherwise, there were no shortage of situations,” the Bulgarian coach described the development of events.
A few minutes before the only goal was scored, our girls were awarded a penalty. Ivana Naydenova, who is a regular performer and usually scores, failed to hit the target this time.
However, the coach of Bulgaria is even more satisfied, because this did not break the team’s drive, but increased their desire to win.
“Kazakhstan team tried to disrupt the game and rely on long, kicked balls. But here I want to praise the girls for winning the one-on-ones. This is a component where we sometimes fall behind, but today we managed that too. We missed to score and a penalty, as well as another situation immediately before the goal. Still, this is the first miss for Ivana Naydenova from the penalty spot. But I think this did not affect the team – on the contrary. Our girls continued to attack even more motivated and that’s how we reached goal and to the victory we deserved.
So I am extremely happy and satisfied, both with the victory, but no less with the self-giving. And I’m happy. It was a really important game for all of us. I hope that this match will bring us greater self-confidence, which we should have,” concluded the coach of Bulgaria.