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Revenge
motive for Raúl
Raúl González says Spain will be on a revenge mission at the
UEFA EURO 2004 finals next summer when they attempt to put the
record straight against their qualifying round conquerors
Greece.
Monday, 8 December 2003
The
Spanish captain told uefa.com that Iñaki Sáez's side were
deeply hurt by their 1-0 defeat by the Greeks in Saragossa
last June and cannot wait to prove a point when the two sides
go head to head again in Group A at the Estádio da Bessa on
16 June.
"It's a revenge match against Greece," said Raúl.
"When we lost to them it was a very bad game for Spain
because it caused us big problems in terms of us failing to
gain direct qualification from the group as winners. We now
have the opportunity to prove to our supporters that we are a
better team than Greece and that our loss to them was only a
mirage. They provoked some really bad moments for us which we
haven't forgotten, and we can't wait to play them again with
our strongest team."
Hosts Portugal and Russia make up the quartet of teams in
Group A, and the Real Madrid CF striker is the first to
acknowledge that the Spaniards have a tough task ahead of them
if they want to progress to the knockout stages. "This is
not an easy group for Spain by any means and I actually think
it is the most difficult one of the lot," he told
uefa.com. "There is no team in our group that you can
take lightly at all."
The 26-year-old talisman is disappointed that Spain have been
paired with their neighbours Portugal in the opening stages.
The two sides met in a September friendly in Guimarães when
Spain comfortably won 3-0, but Raúl says he would have
preferred to meet them in the latter stages of the
competition.
"Playing Portugal at the finals will be nice, but I wish
that we could have avoided each other until at least the
quarter-finals because I have a lot of good friends who play
in the Portuguese national team, like my Real Madrid team-mate
Luís Figo for example," said Raúl. "When we last
played them in a friendly we won, so that will be good for
confidence. As for Russia, they are a difficult team, but I
think we are stronger than them and I hope we can show
it."
Although Portugal are the host nation, there is certain to be
an invasion of Spanish fans flooding across the border to
support their national heroes. And it is that immense vocal
backing which Raúl hopes will turn out to be a major
advantage for Spain as they look to shake off their tag of
being major championship flops.
"We are playing near to home and this could be an
important help to us because we will get plenty of support in
the stadiums from Spanish fans," Raúl claimed. "We
all want to fight for something that is very important to our
country and I'm confident that we have the team to do some
really good things at EURO 2004. In the finals there will not
be one easy team, but it's up to us to prove that Spain are
superior to the rest." - Ken
Martin
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