On Tuesday, September 10, the Ukrainian national team lost to the Czech Republic (2:3) in the match of the 2nd round of the 2024/25 Nations League. Here is the post-match press conference of the head coaches of the teams.
Sergei RebrovSerhiy REBROV, head coach of the Ukraine national team:
- How do you evaluate the game? Do you think you were unlucky today?
- We are all upset with the result. Unfortunately, we lost a very important match. But I am grateful to the guys, they tried to save the game. I was just asked why we started to play from the second half, but in the first half Czech Republic was very aggressive, and it was very difficult for us to create chances.
In this match everything was decided by the mistakes we made in defense. The second half was very intense and interesting, we could have scored more goals. But, unfortunately, we lost because of our mistakes.
- Are you not resigning?
- (Smiling). No, not yet. Wait a little bit.
- How to deal with the mistakes you say?
- We will work. These are both team and individual mistakes. You see, what different questions: some say that we were unlucky, and others say to resign. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us. Yes, we have zero points after two matches, but our goal is to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. We can get there both from the World Cup qualifiers and from the Nations League. Nations League is a very important tournament, the guys gave everything to win today. But there is a lot of work. Despite the fact that I have been working with the Ukraine national team for almost a year, I have met with the team, if we do not take Euro-2024, for three weeks at most. It is very hard to work on, we will correct our mistakes.
- Have you finished analyzing the performance of the Ukrainian national team at Euro-2024?
- We recently had a press conference dedicated to this topic, which lasted two hours, and I said everything there.
- Why did the Ukrainian national team did not play as aggressively as the Czech team?
- I did not say that we did not play aggressively, I said that the Czech Republic played aggressively. We tried to take the ball away, after the conceded goal we pressed a lot and thanks to that we equalized the score. I can not say that we were not aggressive. I am grateful to the players. The chances we created today will be enough for several matches
- How do you evaluate the support of the stands?
- It was very pleasant. We saw how many Ukrainian flags were in the stands. I am grateful not only to the Ukrainians, but also to the Czechs, who also supported the Ukrainian national team in the match against Albania and last time when we played here. We are always very pleased to play in the Czech Republic. We are always grateful to those who support us and Ukraine.
Ivan Hasek, head coach of the Czech national team:
- I realized that I could be under fire of criticism for the lineup for today's match, but the result always comes first. In addition, the commitment of the players who came out for the match today was at the highest level. Therefore, I am satisfied. First of all, we tried to rebuild the game in defense.
- How do you assess the end of the match?
- The tension was very high, even too high. Ukraine created a lot of chances, they had a lot of standard positions. We will analyze how well we acted in these episodes.
In general, the whole game was quite hard. Ukrainian fans supported their team well and at times it felt like we were playing away. But such hard matches give strength not only to me, but also to the whole team.
Alexander POPOV
