Marco Silva is a proud Head Coach after leading Fulham to a first ever League Cup Semi-Final, but wants to make even more history for the Club by going all the way.
Here are some of the key talking points from his press conference previewing Wednesday’s First Leg against Liverpool.
Assessing the challenge ahead…
It’s a great challenge for us, no doubt. It’s a big pride for us to be there, to achieve something that the Club never achieved. But we want more. Really huge respect for Liverpool, the quality they have, how they have been playing, the season they’re having, they are top of the league. Yesterday they showed again in the FA Cup how they can be strong as well with some changes. They have the quality and they are in a very good moment. But, of course, if you are there, if you get the chance to play Semi-Finals, it’s because we have worked so hard to do it. I remember the first game that we played for this competition against Tottenham, and probably in that moment Tottenham was the best team in this country, the way they started the season. And from that moment we have been really serious with our approach, the players worked really hard to get to this stage. And if you are in this stage, you want to aim for more, we want to have the ambition to be at Wembley, while understanding the quality of Liverpool and the huge and the great challenge that we face.
How winning a major trophy would be a big step for Fulham…
100 per cent, no doubts about it, it’s going to be a remarkable situation for this football club. If the Club never did it, it shows how difficult it is to achieve. Some people call it a dream, and for our fans we love when they can have the chance to dream, it means that we are doing something really good. And if they are dreaming of something so special, firstly it’s because they trust in ourselves and because we are giving good feelings for them. For us, you can talk about dreaming, you can talk about ambition, for me it’s much more ambition than a dream, for me it’s much more of an aim. If you are there, if you get the chance, it’s because we did work so hard to be there. Now we want to give another step, and another step is to face Liverpool and try to be in the Final.
The importance of staying in the tie after the First Leg…
You're talking about two games. But, at the same time, you cannot be thinking about the second game if you don't do so well in the first. This is where you have to have the right balance. Of course, game management is going to be really important during the next match against them at Anfield. You know how Liverpool normally play at home, they are normally on the front foot, their home form has been brilliant this season. We have to understand the game to play there. At the same time, do it in the right balance, because we have a chance to have a second game at home to decide something. I don't want the players just thinking about the second game, because if we don't do our job really well in the first one, probably the chances to be decisive at home are not going to be there. Because of that, we have to play really at our best level there, and be clever enough from a tactical point of view in some moments to manage well the game.
Taking confidence from last month’s trip to Anfield…
It's a good tool for us to analyse the game with the players. Not just that one, because Liverpool have a clear idea of how to play. We gave them a really good game, we were able to punish them in some moments really well. I think Jurgen knows really well what he is going to face. The way he normally speaks about our team, I know he doesn't speak just to be nice. We know that he's going to be aware of what we can do. And let's hope we can repeat the performance from last December and, if we can, with a different result.
