ATLANTA, June 18 : Czech Republic manager Miroslav Koubek believes his side were closer to victory than South Africa after the sides played out a 1-1 draw in their World Cup Group A match on Thursday, and he rued their missed chances to put the game away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Czechs got off to the perfect start with Michal Sadilek’s early goal but they failed to press home their advantage and allowed South Africa back into the game with a late penalty which leaves both sides on one point after two matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are sorry about the result, because I think that taking a look at the chances, we were nearer to victory,” Koubek told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But we were not able to score a second goal. If we scored a second goal, it would probably be the end of the match. Unless you score a second goal, you cannot win in such a match, and we had quite a few chances to score a goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“On the other hand, South Africa did not create too many chances. They only had a few shots on goal from distance, I am convinced that we were closer to victory than they were, and we have in the end at least one point.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koubek did not agree with South Africa’s manager Hugo Broos, who spoke after the game about the Czechs only creating danger from their tall players from set-pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That is his opinion. He may have such an opinion, but my opinion is different,” Koubek replied when asked about Broos’ words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I agree that the first half was better. We played better in the first half, but I do not agree that South Africa had many chances. I did not see these chances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Sometimes there might have been the impression that our opponent was better because they were on the ball, but they did not have that many chances as we did.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa’s penalty appeared generous as Pavel Sulc did all he could to get his arms out of the way when blocking a shot, but Koubek did not want to argue with the referee’s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think it was okay to call it a handball, but it was very unfortunate for us,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It depends on how your body is located in respect to the ball. I accept the referee’s decision. Even though the penalty was quite strict, it was okay that she called it handball.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Czech Republic will take on Mexico in their final group game, while South Africa meet South Korea, with both games on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATLANTA, June 18 : Czech Republic manager Miroslav Koubek believes his side were closer to victory than South Africa after the sides played out a 1-1 draw in their World Cup Group A match on Thursday, and he rued their missed chances to put the game away. The Czechs got off to the perfect start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417831,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417830\/revisions\/417831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}