FRANCE 98 – Brazil-Norway – M. Zagallo: “The defeat came at the right moment; it's the next match that is important”

“We’re very confident about the rest of the competition. We had a difficult opponent, but we played well. Even with a lot of left footers, our game was good.

The Norwegians are celebrating now, but we’ll see who are the best.

We were against an efficient team who played differently. We were stupid to have lost the ball only seven minutes from the end. Nevertheless, BRAZIL played its own game. We played against a team with two defensive lines, with ten players in defence, this formation was difficult to get around.

We didn’t play enough on the wings; we played too much in the centre. I’m not happy about the way we lost. But I think that this defeat will enable to learn some lessons for the rest of the competition.

I didn’t make any changes when my team was losing. Because I didn’t have any choice, I didn’t have any decision to make.

For this match, we didn’t need the points, so it wasn’t important for us.

There won’t be any changes for the next matches, except César SAMPAIO (5) who will regain his place in the team.

The defeat came at the right moment; it’s the next match that is important. We can not afford to lose the next match, because the direct elimination system comes into play.

As for the refereeing errors, that’s not BRAZIL’s problem so much as that of FIFA.

After the match, I told the players that there was a lack of concentration. We thought that we had already won, and this defeat will teach us a useful lesson.

Regarding CHILE… I don’t want to talk about them now. I’ll be analysing data on this team, and planning tactics against them. We have four days to think about it.