Atletico Mineiro coach Cuca apologized to his team’s 10,000 fans who made the long trip to Marrakech from Brazil following Wednesday’s 3-1 defeat to Raja Casablanca in theClub World Cup semifinal. Atletico had been looking forward to meeting European champion Bayern Munich in the final ever since winning the Copa Libertadores, the South American championship, inJuly.
“Almost everyone played badly,” Cuca told reporters after the loss. “We have to be responsible, professional and divide the blame for a bad game and apologize to our fans. We have tolift ourselves quickly no matter how difficult that seems. We expected to get the anxiety out of our system after the first 15 or 20 minutes. Instead, we created chances and missed incredible goalsand that created more anxiety.
He added: “When we equalized, we had the game at our mercy but with five or six minutes to go, we allowed them a counterattack and conceded the second goal…. If you tried to find somebody who did well today, I think that would be difficult and I would include myself in that.”