HAMBURG: Czech Republic coach Ivan Hasek admitted his side’s group-stage exit from Euro 2024, after a 2-1 loss to Turkiye was a “failure” – but he is already looking ahead to the next challenge.
The Czechs played for more than 70 minutes with only 10 men after Antonin Barak was shown two early yellow cards and were eventually sunk by Cenk Tosun’s injury-time winner.
“I must say it is a failure we’re going home, we’re sad because this team was capable of advancing,” said Hasek. The absence of striker Patrik Schick, who scored against Georgia to add to his five goals at the last Euros before limping off injured, proved a huge setback.
“I’m sorry for my guys, they played really well tonight, they risked injury until the very end.”
“Obviously, this (the two yellow cards) affected the game very much. We had a strategy going in to the game and unfortunately this affected the game a lot.”
However, he said he would focus on the next challenge rather than the referee’s decision to send off Barak.
“We are not going to change what happened here,” Hasek told reporters. “There is another challenge ahead of us, qualification for the World Cup.”
Hasek said he only spoke to Barak briefly at halftime but said the attacking midfielder was distraught over his sending-off.
“He was upset with his head in his hands,” Hasek said. “He punished himself by beating himself up about this.”
“I don’t want to say that we did not win because of the referee, we should have beaten Georgia and this game would have been completely different.”
“It was one of the most beautiful tournament atmospheres I have experienced in my career,” Hasek added. “This is how you motivate young players. Having lived through this they will want to live through this again.” — Agencies
