RFS head coach Viktors Morozs admitted his side would have preferred more than a point after letting leads of 2-0 and 3-2 slip in the 3-3 derby draw with Riga FC, but said the performance still showed the fight he wants from his team.
“Of course, you always want to win every game. But when the result is 2-0 after 15-20 minutes, and then 3-2 in the last minutes, it would be better to win.
A good result would be better. All in all, the main thing is the fight. We will try to win. That’s the main thing. Not to look at the result. We saw it today. I am satisfied with what we did.”
Morozs described the match as “a derby in a great atmosphere” between “two equal teams”, adding that both sides made mistakes. He pointed to moments in the first half when Riga FC could have shifted the match in their direction, while RFS also had chances to extend their advantage.
He also defended the decision to use a three-centre-back system, saying it was not only based on last season’s match against Riga FC but on previous games where the structure had worked.
“It was a tactical decision. We play with four defenders. We do the same things. We ask the players to do the same things. We didn’t have any problems. We can repeat ourselves and play like that.”
Riga FC head coach Adrian Gula saw the same match through the lens of his team’s response. He also praised the atmosphere and said recovering from 2-0 down against RFS showed the resilience of his players.
“For the fans, it was very attractive. Also, my team showed good character. It’s not easy to come back after 2-0 against RFS. They are a good team. A very good team. This is a big rival, a big derby.”
Gula said Riga FC needed time to adapt early in the match, including to the wind and to RFS’s setup, but felt his side gained momentum after making the necessary adjustments.
“This comeback, what I saw in our team, was really strong. We came back not just for 2-1, but we had a big opportunity during the first half to score the second goal.
In the second half, I felt we were better physically. This goal for 3-2 a little bit distracted us, but the reaction of the team was really, really very good. We fought until the end and we scored a goal for 3-3.”
The Riga coach also said the switch to a more saturated midfield helped his team control the game better, while stressing that the derby was only one test in a long season.
“If we change formation for 3-5-2, we were really, really strong, and we started to control more ball, and we started to control more game. This was a really good test for us.
We cannot stop our improvement, because RFS is a strong team. For both teams, I think it was a very good game, a very good test, and nothing can be decided, because the competition is so long.”
Gula’s main concern remained defensive record – a persistent theme from the start of this season. While he praised Riga FC’s attacking quality and the impact of substitutes, he said the team could not continue conceding goals so cheaply.
“We need to be better, especially in defense line. Around our box, and inside, we need to be 100% better. We score amazing goals, offensively we are really, really strong, but we conceded very easy goals, and this cannot happen, and we cannot continue like this.”
