Luis Enrique: "We are happy to have avoided two powerful teams"

MADRID, 9 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Spanish soccer coach, Luis Enrique Martínez, has assured that they are "happy" to have avoided "two strong teams" such as France and England in the qualifying phase for Euro 2024, but has recalled that "surprise results always appear " and that for this reason they must be alert in a Group A in which they will face Scotland, Norway, Georgia and Cyprus.

"You know how the draws are, that on the surface it seems that everything influences, but in football surprise results always appear. Our job is to analyze those teams when the time comes. If it is to avoid those two powerful teams... yes , we are happy," he said after the draw.

About the rivals, the Asturian coach warned of the danger of all of them. "The two games in the previous qualifying phase against Georgia cost us a lot. Norway has the great world star, a player who is nice to see for what he represents in the world of football. Then we have Scotland, who are one of the selections that is improving the results a lot. And then Cyprus. It is an interesting classification that needs our performance to get the classification", he said.

For his part, the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, also agreed on the relief of having avoided the French and English. "Everyone thought of France and England, there was an 'oh' in the room when they fell into Group B and Group C. It is true that everyone wants to avoid Spain as well. I am happy, we faced to teams that we respect; we are thinking about where we are going to take the games," he said.

"Although we try to be humble, in this group, by ranking, we must recognize that our goal is to be group champions to be in the next European Championship. We respect everyone, there will surely be surprises in all the groups and we will have to be very firm, doing our job as well as possible and asserting our quality above other teams", he concluded.