ReactionMatt Beard: I was pleased with a lot of things we did against PSG
Matt Beard saw plenty of encouraging signs from Liverpool FC Women during Monday night's meeting with Paris Saint-Germain Feminine in the AMOS Women's French Cup.
The Reds were beaten 2-1 on penalties in the semi-final clash after Natasha Flint had equalised in the second half to cancel out a 21st-minute opener from Jade Le Guilly at Stade Michel Bendichou.
Beard's side will now take on Atletico Madrid on Thursday evening in the pre-season tournament's third-place play-off.
Read on for the post-match thoughts of the Liverpool boss...
On the game...
It's only our second game in pre-season, so we're pleased with a lot of things that we've been working on in training for it to come off. I felt we were really good for 30 minutes in the second half. It's obviously disappointing to lose the game on penalties but when it comes to penalties, it's obviously a lottery. But I was pleased with a lot of stuff that we did today. We can take a lot of confidence, a lot of learning up against a very good side tactically into the rest of our pre-season.
On his selection plans for the Atletico meeting...
We need to rotate because we've only played one game [before the PSG meeting] this pre-season, so we need to rotate. We had planned minutes for players tonight. This really is about developing what we've been working on in training. It's about getting everyone physically fit and then at the end of the tournament we've got three more games before our season starts. So, we'll use these games to obviously learn against European opposition, which I think is going to be key for us. But we'll rotate the team on Thursday.
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On facing Atletico...
I think the top teams are very similar in the way that they play. If you look at Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, they play very similar to PSG. Atletico will be slightly different. What I meant with the answer with playing against European opposition, obviously we haven't done that for a while. For us just to play against different teams, different players with different personalities, different cultures, it's good learning for us. It'll be different on Thursday than it was [against PSG].
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