Köbi Kuhn pointed to the example of Portugal after co-hosts Switzerland lost the opening game of UEFA EURO 2008™, just as Luiz Felipe Scolari's side did on home soil four years ago. The Switzerland coach saw enough in their 1-0 defeat by the Czech Republic to suggest his team can still find a way out of Group A in their two remaining matches. For opposite number Karel Brückner, there was the satisfaction of a "job well done" although the Czechs' coach also saw room for improvement in his side.

Köbi Kuhn, Switzerland coach
I would like to congratulate my players on their performance because they couldn't really have done any better. They can leave tonight with their heads held high and they deserve to get a good rest before our next game [against Turkey] on Wednesday. But this was a match we could quite easily have won or drawn – certainly if you look at the chances we had. That's football for you, though, and it is not always fair. However, the EURO isn't suddenly over for us. Our chances of winning the group may be slimmer but I have told the players that Portugal lost their first game four years ago and then remained unbeaten until the final. Rather than giving up, we are going to build on what we achieved today. It was a shock, of course, to lose our captain in the first game – a disaster even – but the team carried on because they had to. We had a second half to play. As for their goal, I haven't seen it and I don't know what went wrong in our defence but I'll be looking very carefully at it.

Karel Brückner, Czech Republic coach
We did a good job. Three points from the first game is a great start and a great boost for the rest of our group campaign. However, I think we can play much better than we did as this was by no means our best performance. Playing against the Swiss in Basel meant there was pressure for them and pressure for us – and in the second half, especially after we had scored, we were under pressure although never desperately so. It was never a siege out there and our defensive display was very good. We did make some mistakes elsewhere on the pitch because we weren't able to hold on to the ball enough. Overall, though, I was delighted with the midfielders too. In the second half, I brought on Václav Svěrkoš for Jan Koller because we hadn't really done enough going forward and you need quicker players later in a game. It turned into a good substitution but I still don't think we'll win the group.