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Spain up to speed as Czechs look back

Spain were happy to put their opening slip behind them in beating the Czech Republic, though injuries are piling up, while Tomáš Neumann regretted missed chances.

Spain up to speed as Czechs look back
Spain up to speed as Czechs look back ©UEFA.com

José Venancio López, Spain coach
Tomorrow Torras will have a test to see the extent of his [knee] injury. Miguelín and Lin are doubtful for the match against Slovenia [in the quarter-finals]. We currently do not know whether they will be able to play on Tuesday. Sometimes these things happen, but we have to accept it and whatever happens we have a great team. The problem now is that we have only one day off.

I asked the players to make a point. We have done our duty, nothing else. Any team can surprise you, you can not underestimate anyone. Everything is very level. Now there is no margin of error, we can not fail. We were below par on the first day, and we cannot afford any more mistakes.

Rafael Usín, Spain forward
I think we had to improve after [the draw against Croatia on Friday]. Today we proved it was a small bump that can happen to any team. We wanted to win convincingly, playing well and showing our strength. We played the game we wanted.

I think this team has earned the right to be one of the best in the world. We've been quiet and we played at the level we wanted. We are very confident in the work we do and we have reflected it. As more games go by, I think you will see the best Spain, as always in the big tournaments.

[Slovenia] are a very physical team that have improved a lot in recent years. They are a team that is going to be hard to beat. They know what they do and have very clear ideas. We will have to carry the weight of favouritism and not give anything away. We have to do well to be in the next round.

Fernandão, Spain forward
This is a European championship, and we all want to give the maximum. There is no other goal in the team than playing the final. We had no doubts in the squad, that is up to journalists. We know that a European Championship is always very difficult. It was not bad we drew against Croatia. We left with a bad taste and do not want to repeat that feeling. I think we can give more. We lost two players [Lin and Miguelín] that are very important in the group. We hope nothing happens to Jordi [Torras], I feel very bad about that. I hope we can all be there on Tuesday and we get to the final.

Slovenia are a very strong team physically. We have recently played two games against them, one we won and we drew the other. But this will be completely different. This is a competition and if we lose we're out. Both they and we will approach the game very differently from those friendlies.

Sergio Lozano, Spain winger
We said the other day we had a slip and we had not played as well as we wanted. Today we were focused from the beginning and we succeeded. I think in any championship, Spain always improve as they go along. Over the matches we are improving and we hope to have a great game in the quarter-finals. Having drawn the other day could have created doubts in the squad, but we believe in ourselves. We have long been preparing for this tournament, and now let us focus on Slovenia.

Tomáš Neumann, Czech Republic coach
We played very well in the first half. We had about five good chances but we didn't take them, and then there was the penalty [that made it 2-0 just before half-time]. In the second half Spain did what they needed to do. We tried to score, we had some chances, but Spain were better in the second half.

For us the match against Croatia [which ended 3-3 when the Czechs conceded a late equaliser] was the most important, we needed to win. It is a pity that we didn’t win against Croatia. We knew it was the crucial match for us, to take us to the quarter-finals. Our future is very good, We have a lot of experience of playing in the European Championship, we must now build toward the next [FIFA Futsal] World Cup and EURO.

David Frič, Czech Republic defender
Spain are probably in the top three in the world, so we wanted to play aggressively and we wanted to play attacking futsal, as we wanted possession. But when we didn't do that they had the ball all the time, and they just kept creating chances, they had a lot of shots. We had two or three big chances in the first half but we missed them and if you play against as good a team as Spain, you've got to take every chance. We didn't do that and that's why we lost.

Why did we lose by so much? It is our priority to play. We want to learn and the best experience is this sort of match, that's why we attacked and that's why the score was what it was, it doesn't matter if it is 2-1 or 8-1.

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