Silva confident Portugal can deal with the play-off final’s pressure

Bernardo Silva

admitted that

are undergoing pressure to get qualification for the

but he insisted that his side are able to deal with the challenges to come.

Portugal vanquished

3-1 on Thursday in the play-off semi-final.

Silva, the Manchester City star, thinks that the Portugal squad can use their experience to deal with what is expected from them against North Macedonia.

"

The responsibility of being present at the World Cup means that, regardless of the opponent, we have this pressure,"

 Silva told reporters at Sunday's pre-match news conference.

"The pressure exists in that sense, and we accept it, and it would be the same against Italy, [North] Macedonia or anyone else. We are used to pressure at our clubs.

"Of course, having players with experience in decisive games helps. But the fact that North Macedonia haven't played as many games like these also makes their motivation levels higher."

North Macedonia are aiming for their first World Cup in their 27-year history, as they qualified for Euro 2020 and Silva is confident Blagoja Milevski’s side refuse to be pushovers by any means.

"

North Macedonia have won four of their last five away games, two of them against two of the best teams in the world [Germany, a 2-1 win in March 2021, and Italy],"

he added.

"Let's do our homework, see what the coach's plan is and try to follow it in the best way, knowing that teams are different and will demand different things.

"We are a team that creates many chances. We also know that we need to control the counter-attacks, and the best way to do that is by moving the ball well.

"We know that we have a difficult task ahead of us, but we will do our best to overcome an opponent that we know will create some difficulties. It's 90 minutes, anything can happen, and we're sure it will be very difficult.

"We need to go to the game with the same idea and all rowing in the same direction. I'm sure things will go well."

Joao Moutinho backed Silva’s startements but he revealed that Portugal expected to go against Italy for a spot in the FIFA’s 2022 edition of the showpiece event.

"

I won't lie to you: we were all expecting it was going to be Italy,"

Moutinho told reporters.

"Football is different nowadays, every team can win at this level; it doesn't matter the names, numbers or stats. North Macedonia have an extraordinary core and will do their best to make our life miserable on Tuesday."

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