The 43-year-old coach was philosophical despite the
down-hearted result after his team were beaten comprehensively by the reigning
world champions
Tahiti boss Eddy Etaeta believes his team can leave the
Confederations Cup with a sense of pride having "won over hearts"
following Thursday's 10-0 defeat to Spain.
The South Pacific islanders, who sit 137 places below
their Spanish counterparts in the Fifa world ranking, were demolished by
Vicente del Bosque's men, with Fernando Torres (four), David Villa (three),
David Silva (two) and Juan Mata scoring the goals.
However, the 43-year-old is philosophical in defeat and
believes his team achieved what they set out to do - win affection from the
general public.
"It’s quite difficult when you get thrashed 10-0 but
my players tried to really play football. They did their utmost to perform as
well as possible - but at some point you've got to defend your goal
better," he told reporters.
"We had overwhelming support from all the public in
the Maracana. It’s very very important to us. We wanted to reach the hearts of
the Brazilian public and I think we’ve done that.
"We lost the match 10-0 but we won over hearts in
Brazil. I want to say a big, big thank you to the Brazilian public."
Meanwhile, Etaeta went on to appeal to people in Tahiti
to acknowledge the sport in their home country and believes the result can
prove beneficial in the long-term.
He added: "To be honest, we are more well known here
in Brazil than at home in Tahiti. I hope that we get more recognition and
support from our own population when we get back to Tahiti.
"We realised it would be almost impossible to
compete with such high level teams here but we are drawing a number of lessons
from this tournament for the future."
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