Maritimo aim to win

“We have to play to win the game” was the rallying cry from Maritimo boss Mitchell Van Der Gaag ahead of the Portuguese side’s tie with Sporting Fingal tomorrow at Dalymount.

The fixture may be tilted in Maritimo’s favour at 3-2 after the match in Madeira, but Van Der Gaag said his side would not be content with just a draw.

“If you come and only try to get the result you need, it’s very difficult to predict [how the match will go]. For our team, we play the same at home or away from home. It has to be the same, if not it doesn’t help to prepare the team.

It has nothing to do with a lack of respect for Sporting Fingal,” added the Dutchman, “we have to win the game. Our goal is to win the game, and during the game we have to see if it’s possible or not.”

Speaking about the home leg, in which Fingal led until late into the match, Van Der Gaag said that he was pleased with the win, but would have liked a greater margin of victory: “It’s a win, it’s not the margin that I wanted before the game but it’s a win and hopefully my team is better prepared now in terms of fitness.

Before the first leg I said I wanted to win without conceding a goal. But we lost two goals, two easy goals. In a way it’s normal for our preparation because we only trained for four weeks and we’ve hardly played a game. In terms of rhythm and work ethic we’re a bit behind Sporting Fingal.

The former Motherwell and PSV defender even said he wouldn’t mind pulling his old boots back on for this match: “We have to be prepared to play in these conditions- even I want to play. It has everything it needs to be a good game.”

Maritimo will be without star player Djalma, after the Angolan midfielder picked up a knock in the home leg of the fixture: “Yeah he’s injured. It’s unfortunate. He already had an ankle problem and it got worse last week.”

Van Der Gaag was effusive in his praise for the way Fingal play, remarking that they play quite differently to what he termed ‘the typical British or Irish game’: “it’s not a typical direct game that they play.

They play well and normally they try to play the ball on the floor so it’s not a typical British game. They are not easy games. For people that don’t watch football that much they might think it will be easy for Maritimo but it’s not going to be easy. We were not surprised by the quality of Fingal and we never underestimated Fingal. For tomorrow we will prepare the same way we did last week.”

Fingal are characteristically good from set-pieces, and Van Der Gaag acknowledged that the Ravens took their chances well in the first leg: “I think they had one corner-kick during ninety minutes. But they are very strong- a typical strong point of an Irish or Scottish team. They had three shots on target and they scored twice, and could have scored the third one as well. If we have a lack of concentration like we had last week it’s going to be very difficult.

Van Der Gaag concluded the press conference, held as his team trained tonight on the pitch in Dalymount, by saying that he expected a big improvement from his players: “we have to improve as a team. Every player has to improve on his performance.”