Douglas delighted with Sanfrecce’s world impact

Douglas delighted with Sanfrecce’s world impact

Douglas was pleased to show off his goalscoring prowess on the world stage, and praised Sanfrecce Hiroshima for seeing off Guangzhou Evergrande for third place at the Club World Cup.

His brace in Sunday’s play-off allowed Hajime Moriyasu’s men to bounce back from going a goal down early on, with Sanfrecce going on to claim a 2-1 win in Yokohama.

And victory came from the side putting to good use the lessons learnt in the semi-final defeat to River Plate according to Douglas, who reveled in putting his side on the world map.

“I didn’t imagine when I came to Sanfrecce Hiroshima that I’d be playing for the third-best team in the world,” the Brazilian said. 

“If you meet good team-mates at the right time, this sort of thing will happen. I’m happy that we’re third best in the world. 

“Coach Moriyasu told me to play directly if I could, and if that was impossible to turn with the ball and create shooting opportunities. I felt like this was any normal game, and I wanted to dedicate all of my strength to helping the team.

“We could have won against River Plate, and that was disappointing. We learned an important lesson about creating chances and needing to finish when we have those chances. 

“But reaching third place is a big deal and will give us confidence. This wasn’t about what I did, it’s about the result we achieved through our unity as a team. 

“But we still have the Emperor’s Cup and we want to win one more title this year.”

The 27-year-old’s goals were already instrumental in lifting Sanfrecce to their third MEIJI YASUDA J1 League title, with his tally of 21 putting him just behind Yoshito Okubo in the top scorer’s charts.

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