The captain of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Edin Džeko, announced the clash against Portugal in the match of the 8th round of qualification for EURO 2024.
At the start of the press conference, Dzeko announced the match against the Portuguese and answered a question on what the final outcome would depend on.
“It is clear to everyone that Portugal is the favorite, as it was at the beginning of the qualification. We were not at our level during the whole qualification. Anyone who predicts, will say that Portugal will win easily. We have the quality we failed to show in the last matches. In any case, we will try to play the best we can, to show the quality that graced us in the League of Nations. We played that best in recent years. We need to be very lucky, because Portugal is a team that will punish everything. Not everything depends on us, it’s a team with so much quality that one chance can change the course of the game. We will do our best, I am 100% sure of that,” said Dragons captain Edin Dzeko.
During the press conference, journalists asked Džeko and Milošević if they were afraid that the fans would cause a new disruption due to dissatisfaction with the leaders of the Football Association of BiH, as was the case in Liechtenstein.
“We are not afraid. I’ve been here for a long time, the boss is new. I can say from experience that we always had the support of the fans, whether we were playing at home or away. People are not satisfied, and neither are we. The most important thing is representation. I play there, nobody asks me anything, I don’t decide anything. There are people above us who make the decisions they make. We the players have to take our share of the blame for the poor results. We expect that the stadium will be full again, I hope that the fans will also recognize our sacrifice on the field and in the end we will see what it will bring us”, said Dzeko.
Furthermore, the leader of BiH selection, he answered the question, whether he thinks that the next opponent of Dragons will play a little “underhanded”, considering the fact that they secured the EURO.
“Portugal has no pressure and that can only mean that they will play even better. Coach Martinez said that he will change some players. “Portugal is a big team, they will play for sure in possession of the ball, but we will certainly try with all our might to do something,” concluded the BiH captain.
“I’m a little more experienced, a little more. It was a long time ago. We were certainly unlucky with Portugal. Twice when we played a play-off, maybe if some other teams were weaker, it would have been a different story. We had a lot of quality at that time. We were unlucky. Will it be different now, when you play against Portugal, you play against big players. It’s not something new for me to play against big players. Now I’m not as nervous as before,” said the Fenerbache player, N1 reports.