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."
Tahiti face off against Uruguay in their final game of Group B in the Confederations Cup. ---------------------------- goal.com
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