What are your immediate feelings after the match?
We have to swallow a bitter pill in the form of a well-deserved 0:5 loss. If I take it step by step, one thing is the early conceded goal, with which we put Sparta at ease. Others stemmed from our poor behavior after losing the ball. Whether it was in the middle of the field or in front of the penalty area.
Especially in the beginning, even the construction of the game didn’t work very well…
For the first thirty minutes we gave all the balloons to Milan Heč and he just kicked it up. When it was 0:2, we started to play a little bit. But the difference between us and Sparta is also in the efficiency in finishing. We went into the second half thinking that we wanted to stop the goal machine. But you saw that we could hold on for twenty minutes and score two goals for Sparta by ourselves with gross mistakes in passing. And the rampant Sparta punishes them. On the other hand, we failed to take advantage of our chances and that was the result.
Do you also blame some forced personnel changes for the result?
I don’t want to make excuses, but we were missing some key players. That’s the reality, you can tell against Sparta. Other players got the opportunity and at least we saw how they dealt with it and how they are doing. This match needs to be quickly forgotten. I can’t get too many positive things out of him.
So why did you end up pointing to this lineup?
Because I had to. It started with Milan Petržela, Marek Havlík joined yesterday and Standa Hoffmann also got sick today. The last two wanted to go to the bench, but they could not intervene in the game. Some lineup was on Wednesday and some of it was made today. There was no room for interplay, cooperation, things like that.
So how are the aforementioned doing?
With Hoffmann, it is a virus. Havlík has a slightly sprained ankle, with Milan Petržela it is perhaps something lighter, a tendon. Daníček spent a long time recovering from the foul (he was shot down by Benson Sakala in the 5th round on the Mladá Boleslav pitch, editor’s note).
Ondřej Mihálik was also injured in the first half. Didn’t the clash, after which he eventually had to substitute, also smell like a penalty kick? Similar to, for example, Merchas Doski’s fall in the fight with Tomáš Wiesner in the second half.
I am convinced that if those situations had happened on the other side, there would have been at least one penalty. But that has to be evaluated by others. For me, there were two penalty saves in the second half that could have been whistled. Doski was getting in front of a player who didn’t even know where the ball was and was holding it with his hands. We’re told that’s not enough. I am 100% sure that on the other side it would be a penalty. But this did not lose us the match.
You seem surprisingly resigned to the loss…
Reconciled no. It boils inside me, but I see clear reasons for defeat. Poor quality, disorganization. I’m more disappointed than angry about this. I’m already thinking about what to do next. It is important to move away from this game quickly, read the bad things and learn from them. And prepare for the next match, especially mentally.