West Ham United’s Vladimir Coufal has admitted he won’t be getting over Czech Republic’s 4-1 loss to Georgia “for a very long time”.
Idnes cover comments from the full-back today after the ‘embarrassment’ in Georgia left everyone in the Czech squad asks questions.
Coufal is part of an experienced group taking part in this international break, with the 31-year-old picking up his 46th international cap in the game.
He was unable to stop the Georgians running riot, though, as goals from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Giorgi Chakvetadze, Georges Mikautadze and Giorgi Kochorashvili putting the home side 4-0 inside 60 minutes.
Lukas Kalvach was able to get a goal back in the 80th minute to slightly lessen the pain for the away side, although by that point the damage had long been done.
It was a disappointing evening for Coufal and his team, who would have been hoping to bounce back from their elimination at Euro 2024 in the Group Stages in their first game of the Nations League.
Instead, they started in the worst possible way and the West Ham man, whose last victory personally with the national side was 15 months ago against the Faroe Islands, admits this one will take some time to get over.
“It has two levels. We are playing another match right away, so we have to knock ourselves down, do a quick analysis of what went wrong,” he said.
“And now we have to focus on what will happen. But to be honest, I personally won’t be getting over Georgia for a very long time.
“I won’t say we didn’t fight, even if it looked that way. We fought. But as I mentioned the naivety. How we handled those situations, how we didn’t talk, how we didn’t trade players. Bloodless performance. We had to explain it in the cabin, and I hope everyone understood.”
