Santos coach Muricy Ramalho has admitted that his side need an improved performance in the World Club Cup final after a difficult 3-1 win against Kashiwa Reysol in Wednesday night’s semi-final.<\/p>\n
The South American champions took a 2-0 lead in the first half thanks to goals by Neymar and Borges. Reysol fought back in the second half, and reduced the deficit through Hiroki Sakai’s header.<\/p>\n
A Danilo free kick eventually secured Santos’ progression to the final, and Ramalho was understandably pleased with the result.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think it was a lucky game,” he said in a press conference following the match. “We are a skilled team, and we finished well.”<\/p>\n
Although the Japanese side had several opportunities to add to their only goal and dominated possession, the Santos coach was not overly concerned. However, he did concede that his team will have to raise their game should they face Barcelona on the final.<\/p>\n
“In Brazil we basically focus on offence – not defence,” justified Ramalho. “So it is normal that we have conceded chances today.<\/p>\n
“Possession is not the same as result, but we will surely need to do better, because Barcelona are a fantastic team with possession, and we [only] scored goals tonight.<\/p>\n
“If the next match is against Barcelona, who are probably stronger than Reysol, we’ll have to do better.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Santos coach Muricy Ramalho has admitted that his side need an improved performance in the World Club Cup final after a difficult 3-1 win against Kashiwa Reysol in Wednesday night’s semi-final. The South American champions took a 2-0 lead in the first half thanks to goals by Neymar and Borges. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n