Fight fire with fire? We need to do the opposite, insists Caixinha
PEDRO CAIXINHA has made it clear that he expects his players to use brain rather than brawn to overcome a Motherwell side earning a reputation for height, strength, organisation and fitness. Fir Park manager Stephen Robinson has built his side around a certain degree of athleticism and it has been bringing positive results, with his side in the last four of the Betfred Cup and just a point behind third-placed Rangers in the Premiership.
Ibrox boss Caixinha insists, though, that there is no chance of him being dragged into meeting fire with fire in this afternoon’s Hampden clash.
‘I’m not that type of guy,’ he said. ‘In the time of the cowboys, we used to say: “Eye by eye and teeth by teeth”, but now that they have found the weapons, it is not like that anymore.
‘So, we need to be clever. I don’t think we will be fighting fire with fire or sword with sword. Exactly the opposite.
‘If they are strong, we need to avoid giving them the chance to be. They are only strong when they have the initiative in the game and when they have the ball. ‘We know they are going to perform like that, so we have to make sure that we use our movement, our identity and style.
‘You just have to be clever, smell the game, understand the game and make the right decisions. That’s what we have been working on as part of our identity — how to compete against those teams.
‘They are one aggressive team and they are a physical team, but I like the way they are aggressive, I like the way they are physical.
‘It is not something I say as a criticism. You need to find solutions to counteract the way they play.
‘They are really strong on the long balls, really strong on the second waves and really strong on the set-pieces.’ Caixinha won three trophies as head coach of Mexican club Santos Laguna but has had a mixed relationship with cup semi-finals over his time in the technical area. The first saw his Nacional side face Sporting Lisbon in the 2011-12 Portuguese Cup and miss out on a glorious first-leg victory thanks to a 96th-minute equaliser that made it 2-2. Nacional went on to lose the second leg 3-1 at home. ‘It was tough. It would have been my first final, but life teaches you that, when you get in those situations again, you have to try to look forward and do it better the next time,’ he said. ‘We went to the Alvalade Stadium and, if the injury time wasn’t ten or 15 minutes, we would have won. But being in this chair now, all I think about is winning. ‘I think I have been in maybe five semifinals including the ones in Mexico. It’s totally different the competition there. It is so much more competitive, totally different. ‘Santos have not won since that time and, in the hierarchy of the 18 teams, there are there maybe 14 competing to win. But we did it.’