‘If one doesn’t feel the pressure, he should stay at home’ said National Teams Head Coach Devis Mangia during the pre-match press conference held today in the AEK Arena prior to tomorrow’s match against Cyprus.
On Monday Malta will be playing away against Cyprus in the second commitment in the October international window. Malta are playing in Group H and have equal points as Cyprus (4) after 7 games. Mr Mangia reiterated that, ‘all of the team; the players, the coaches, the team manager, the kit manager should feel the game. We should do our best.’ In September the two teams met in Ta’ Qali and then Malta won 3-0. This time round the game could be a very different one since both teams, have not won their recent games, and want to appear the stronger team and obtain the best result. Mr Mangia expects it to be a tough game since he believes that Cyprus did not expect to loose the game in Malta. ‘Tomorrow I will field the formation that I think is the best against this team. The most important thing is to go in the pitch with the right attitude and give more than our 100%’ said Coach Mangia. Joseph Mbong and Alexander Satariano are suspended and will miss tomorrow’s game. However Mr Mangia believes that the team does not depend on one or two players. When speaking about the last game, Devis Mangia said that the fact that the team is disappointed is a good sign. This means that the team believes that they can produce a better performance than last Friday’s. ‘We cannot focus only on the last game, we should look at the past ten games’ said Devis Mangia. He continued to explain that the team has had a run of very good performances and the focus should not be on the one game in which the team faltered. He prefers to look at the positive streak that the team has had rather than focus on the negative. Ryan Camenzuli, who has 19 caps in his stride, is available for tomorrow’s match since he missed the last one due to suspension. He explained that the team are compact and tight knit. He presumes that if the team can win the match if they produce a good performance. ‘The coaching staff are giving space to younger players and this is another plus in this team.’ He remarked that this method is producing results and the team is reaping the fruits.