2024-03-23 07:25:05
Striker Alexander Kolev commented on Bulgaria’s 1:0 victory against Tanzania in the opening match of the FIFA Series tournament.
“Finally such an important win, which I’m sure will give more self-confidence and confidence to the players. A tough game against an opponent who played direct football with long balls.
They play a lot of power football, they make a lot of rough entries. We controlled the game for the most part, while the opponent played with kicked balls on counter attacks.
In the second half they opened up a bit more and there were more spaces for us and we were able to win some important fouls from which we created dangers. And we got to that important and winning goal. And that’s the most important thing. It was certainly not the best team for Bulgaria, but I say again – the victory was important and we were able to congratulate ourselves with the three points. We look to the next game and we have to learn from our mistakes,” added the experienced footballer who played in the championships of Poland and Belgium before returning home.
The next opponent of the Bulgarian team on Monday is that of the hosts. About the match at the Tofik Bahramov Stadium on March 25, he said: “Azerbaijan is a much more serious team, purely in terms of football and literacy. Many of their players play in good clubs, and half are in Karabakh, which we know what they did in Europa League. It will be quite a difficult opponent, but everything depends on us and hopefully this win will put more confidence in all of us”.
“We haven’t won in a year and five months and certainly a burden falls on all of us. Hopefully our team will play more freely. Because we have good players, leaders who play at a pretty good European level. I don’t think we have a bad team. Hopefully this is the beginning of the road to victories and a better game.”
A little before the end of regular time and he could have signed off, but his header did not find the net. “Yes, a nice cross by Martin Minchev on the first post. The only thing I managed to do was slide the ball with my head. But unfortunately for me, it was within the reach of the goalkeeper. For me, it is important to give away, and who scored, it’s another matter. The victory is important”.
“I want to call on the supporters to be more patient. You see we have a new coach. We showed a good face in the previous two matches with Hungary and Serbia, today we won again. I hope we go up and they sit behind the team”, concluded the ram.