Switzerland have been left with a mountain to climb at Euro 2008, but head coach Jakob Kuhn insists his side can recover from a heartbreaking defeat to the Czech Republic in the tournament’s opening match.
Having dominated for long periods, the Swiss were floored by Vaclav Sverkos’ superbly taken, but scarcely deserved, late winner for the Czechs on Saturday evening.
The disappointing end to an evening that promised so much more was compounded for the co-hosts by the loss of captain and leading goalscorer Alexander Frei to an injury that ended his involvement in the tournament.
PHOTO: AP
All Swiss interest in the competition will almost certainly be extinguished if Kuhn’s men lose to Turkey on Wednesday, but Kuhn was defiantly optimistic about his side’s chances of emerging from a first-round group that also includes Portugal.
“I told them they can leave the stadium with their heads held high,” Kuhn said. “Now we have to forget about this game and concentrate on the next match, against Turkey. Our chances of going through have certainly not increased, but we still believe. Everything is still possible and we are not going to give up. We must build on what we did here.”
The Swiss generated a string of good quality chances, but were repeatedly denied by Petr Cech in the Czech goal and the one time they did beat the Chelsea goalkeeper, substitute Johan Vonlanthen’s close-range shot, which would have leveled the score, crashed against the underside of the bar.
“There is not much I can say,” Kuhn said. “We had the chances to at least have drawn the match and we could easily have won it. But that is football, it is not about justice. This game is over for us now, but not the Euro.”
Kuhn said the loss of Frei, who limped off in tears after suffering what was believed to be ruptured knee ligaments just before halftime, was potentially a massive blow for his side.
“It is a disaster to lose our captain in the way we did in the first game of the tournament. We can only hope the injury is not too serious,” Kuhn said.
Czech captain Tomas Ujfalusi admitted it had been a shaky display from his side.
“The most important thing is that we got the win,” he said. “We made some errors, but overall our defense held out. We waited for our chance and when it came we took it. We have to continue like that.”
Head coach Karel Bruckner said: “We did a good job. The first match is always very important and three points represents an excellent start. We were not at our best, but we can play better and we will play better. I don’t think it is fair to say we set out to play a defensive game. We were against a Swiss side playing at home and who were a goal down for half the second half: we were always going to come under pressure and although we made a few mistakes, we coped well.”
The decisive moment in the match came in the 70th minute. Having cleared their lines from a corner, the advancing Swiss back four was caught out when the ball was knocked straight back over their heads by Tomas Galasek.
That gave substitute Sverkos the meter he needed and the top scorer in last season’s Czech championship burst clear before striking the bouncing ball past goalkeeper Diego Benaglio with the outside of his right boot.
It was a fine piece of finishing, but a cruel blow for a Swiss side that had been repeatedly frustrated by a combination of their own weak finishing and the reliability of Cech.
As well as being saved by the woodwork, the Czechs survived a late scare when Ujfalusi blocked a shot with his arm inside the box.
“I jumped and the ball struck my arm, I could not do anything about it,” the defender said in an interpretation of events that was apparently shared by the referee, Roberto Rosetti.
Kuhn declined to criticize the Italian official.
“You can assess his performance, I don’t want to comment,” he said.
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