DOETINCHEM, July 18, 2017 – In June2016, Portugal’s male national team manager Fernando Santos uttered a sentencethat will remain in the history of Portuguese football. After their second drawin two games at EURO 2016, Santos revealed he had told his family that he wouldonly go back to Portugal on July 11, the day after the final. “And I will bereceived with a big party”, he predicted. He was right.

Now, with not many expecting thewomen’s team to provide a repeat of France, the Portuguese coach, FranciscoNeto (whose surname means ‘grandson’), went for a different option.

“I have not told my family when Iwill come back, I just brought them to the Netherlands. The family of ourplayer Ana Leite will also come from Duisburg to watch our matches. Someplayers needed to give their tickets to Ana, so all of her relatives couldenter the stadiums. All I can promise is that we will do everything we can toreturn to Portugal as late as possible,” said Francisco Neto.

The 23 players of the Portuguesesquad are also a family, adds Neto. This is where the comparisons between the men’sand women’s Portuguese teams ends, but the success of 2016 still has itseffects. “It makes no sense to compare the men’s team with the women’s team,but we feel that the people here cherish our team and our country, now thatPortugal are European champions. Although, the important thing is that ouropponents respect us, we saw that during our final friendly games,” the coach said.

In fact, Portugal and Spain metduring the qualifiers for the UEFA Women’s EURO 2017. The Spanish won 2-0 athome and 1-4 in Portugal, but those times have passed.

Francisco Neto said: “We faced Spainduring the qualification, but both teams are different now, we had more time toprepare ourselves. What did not change was that Spain is a team that likes tohave the ball and dominate the game and the opponent. They do that all the time,even in the recent friendly game against Brazil. The players are used to plaingytogether, at Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, and the national coach has beenworking with them since they were young. We know that our major focus is ourdefense, but we also need to always be objective when we have opportunities toscore.”

What is also objective is also thefact that the Portuguese women’s football has been growing, above all becauseof the diaspora present in the best leagues.

“It is important that we have someplayers at a very high level, playing in Brazil, Germany or Sweden. It helpsthem to evolve, and helps us to develop as a team,” said Francisco Neto.

The other Neto, the team’s captainClaudia, who plays for Swedish side Linkoping, perfectly reflects the feelingthat reigns in the Portuguese camp.

“We have good expectations and feelvery happy to be here for the first time, we have always wanted to be at acompetition like this, but we also feel more pressure, a good kind of pressure,as the day of the game approaches. We are all motivated, this is a dream cometrue, so as captain I do not need to motivate my teammates. I will only try topass some positive energy to them. We fought so hard to be here, we only needto give our best,” said Claudia.

With the Portuguese family, and some oftheir Spanish and Dutch counterparts, 2000 people are expected at Wednesday’smatch at the De Vijverberg Stadion.