German joy, Czech heartache
Thursday 24 July 2008
e-mail
Print
Digg
Save
Czech Republic coach Jakub Dovalil and Horst Hrubesch of Germany at the final whistle (©Getty Images)
Photos/Wallpapers »
Two teams who had been inseparable for almost 120 minutes were suddenly poles apart because of Richard Sukuta-Pasu's last-gasp goal in Mlada Boleslav. The defining strike of Thursday's second UEFA European Under-19 Championship semi-final resulted in German joy and Czech heartache, as witnessed by the respective coaches in their post-match news conferences.
Horst Hrubesch, Germany coach
I am delighted we are in the final. The whole game was a great advert for youth football and we deserved to win. I can only congratulate my players because they were asked to fight and they fought. The fact we scored the winner in the last minute means we are lucky, but overall we absolutely deserved the victory. The match-winner was the team as a whole. We knew it would be a difficult game because the Czechs are very good at set-pieces. But the team stood up and were counted and the substitutes were part of that too. We were well prepared. We've been together for five weeks and our aim was always to go to the final. We are relieved that we are there and that we will play Italy on Saturday.
This was the kind of game we could only be excited about playing. It was a big motivation to be playing in front of a big crowd. You could see we were enjoying it in the first 30 minutes because we controlled the match. We started so well that we managed to silence the crowd. We showed our strength and that ultimately got us the win. I have known these players for more than two years. We have played 12 to 14 matches together. There are some players who aren't here because of injuries, and others who joined the squad late from their clubs, but we've managed to develop a good group.
Jakub Dovalil. Czech Republic coach
I believe that this game, and now the final between Germany and Italy, will be the best matches of the championship. It promises to be a first-class final at least. For our part, we have finished third as hosts, with a bronze medal, and we have also qualified for the [FIFA] U-20 World Cup. My players fought hard and gave absolutely everything to get the victory that they so wanted. I am very proud of them. We played other great games, like against England and Italy, and I believe that these players have a big future ahead of them.
It was a pity we couldn't win tonight with Tomáš Necid's chance in the 89th minute but that's football. Then, in the last minute of extra time, they hit a long ball forward and their striker managed the situation better than my players did. We hesitated and it was fatal. We had played four matches in nine days, and we also had to play at full pelt against Italy in our third group game. But it has been a memorable campaign for everyone.
©uefa.com 1998-2008. All rights reserved.
