Spurs 1-2 Real Madrid Femenino | Martin Ho's verdict
Kirsty Hanson got us off to the perfect start at Pinatar Arena when she curled home from the left edge of the box into the top corner to open her account for the Club on her first start since joining us from Aston Villa in June.
However, quickfire strikes from Felicia Schroder and Linda Caicedo turned the game into the Liga F’s side favour midway through the first half – and ultimately proved to be the difference in the contest.
We created a number of opportunities to draw level in the second half as we pushed a regular UEFA Women’s Champions League outfit towards the edge of their box, but just lacked that clinical edge in the final third and were unable to find an equaliser in sweltering conditions.
However, despite the final result, Martin spoke about his pride in the performance against last season’s Liga F runners-up and the preparation it gives for the new Barclays Women’s Super League campaign.
Speaking to us after the clash with Real Madrid, Martin reflected: “You're never happy when you lose a game. We don't want to have that feeling. The players are disappointed, which is a good sign because then it shows in terms of what they expect of one another, what we expect as a team, but I'm proud of the performance.
“We [in the] first half were very good apart from some of the transitions, which they hit us on. They had some other moments, again from us in terms of our forced errors, but I thought we were in good control throughout the first half. We created numerous chances, and we just need to finish some of them, but it's good that we're actually creating.
“Then, second half again, I thought we were the better team again. We pushed, I think we had four to five big chances after we made those changes, which is nice to see because that's what you want the players to do when they come in, is constantly keep the level high, keep the quality high and have an impact. If a few of them go in, then you're in a good position. But we can be really proud of a lot of the parts of that performance.
“I said that to the players then [at the end] that if we perform at this level, we'll be fine because what we've done today in terms of how we went about ourselves, what we've done with the ball, off the ball, second half we were much better defensively and had more control. I thought we had control in flashes in the first half, defensively, but our actual high pressure was good. It's when we stepped off or we mistimed some of the pressure that we got caught. But, if we get to that level, playing against a world-class team who are competing at the top late stages of those European competitions, then we can take a lot of pride from that.”
Now halfway through our performance camp in Southern Spain and with two pre-season games completed – a 1-0 win over Granada earlier this week – Martin says he couldn’t have asked for me from his players across the two fixtures.
“You want to play against really good level opposition,” he added. “You don't want to build yourself up, you want to go straight in and that's what we've done through the training and through the games, that we've gone against some really top, top opposition who are going to cause us problems, not just individually, but collectively and tactically as a team. I thought the players were outstanding. I couldn't have asked anymore. They've given me everything over these two games and now we have a day off tomorrow and then we have a block of training before we go back.”
