Naval still ruing Benfica defeat

Forward Davide feels winning goal was "unjust"

In the aftermath of their 2-1 loss to Benfica on the weekend, Naval are still perturbed at the fact that they went down to defeat. Naval’s Davide does not only feel that the Figueira da Foz side was the better team, but that the goal that handed Benfica the victory should never have been.

The incident the Naval player is referring to is the free kick that was awarded to the Lisbon club for a handball against the forward in the second half.  From the ensuing kick, Katsouranis headed the ball from a Miguel Vitor re-direct into Naval’s net.

But replays showed that Davide never made contact with his hands, but with his face, “I was bleeding from my lip and showed the referee that he had made a mistake, but he responded that he was right. It is frustrating to lose this way,” exasperated the Naval man.

“There was another incident that, again, I was involved in, in the first half, which left me with a lot of doubts, and after seeing the replays, he (the referee) did not even call the foul.”

Davide goes further and added that the entire team felt that Naval should have come away with more and that they were the better team throughout the entire encounter.

“We felt that we were not inferior in any away against Benfica.  We played a beautiful game without complexities. It is unjust to lose the way we did; from two dead ball situations and one that should never have happened.”

“When we reached the interval, we earned 70% of ball possession, which is a good indicator of the game we played,” rationalised the forward.

Naval will continue to face stiff competition as the Navalistas will travel to the Dragao to match wits with FC Porto. For Davide, the player feels that the hurt feelings will not carry over to their next match and that they will be prepared to have a good game against the reigning champions.

“It will be a different match, but we have already proved that we can steal points from FC Porto. We won the first meeting and, after what we accomplished against Benfica, we are confident.”

by Marco Pereira