The coach of the eliminated Slovak footballers Štefan Tarkovič apologized to the fans for the 0: 5 debacle with Spain at the European Championships. According to the coach, the home favorites made an exhibition from the last match of group E in Seville after the third goal.
After the victory 2: 1 over Poland and the loss 0: 1 with Sweden, the Slovaks had enough point to advance, but they were very far from it. “Today we did not make the fans happy and I want to apologize to them on behalf of the national team,” Tarkovič was quoted by the Slovak media.
The visitors ‘Martin Dúbravka almost managed to score another goal for Álvar Morat, coming from the right, but his header was tipped to a corner by the visitors’ keeper. Even before the break, Aymeric raised the Laporte and in the second half they completed the Slovak debacle Pablo Sarabia, alternating Ferrán Torres and Juraj Kucka with his own second goal.
“Such a match can only be played if you have good organization of the game and good physical set-up. We missed this. The first half was marked by a penalty, which Martin Dúbravka eliminated. Then we made many individual mistakes and the quality team can take advantage of it. the match became an exhibition for Spain, “said Tarkovic.
Sarabia hit the crossbar in front of the opening goal, the ball bounced off the apparently dazzled Dúbravek and he threw it into his goal in the jump. “It was my mistake that will make me regret for a long time. Due to one second we had a hard time until the end of the match. After this moment, Spain controlled the game quite calmly,” said goalkeeper Dúbravka, who also caught Liberec and Prague Sparta.
“The Spaniards showed the beauty of combination football. We gave them a lot of space. We defended a lot and no longer had the strength to attack. We knew we couldn’t open it, we tried to close it in half. At 0: 2 we opened it and then we got another goals, “added Captain Marek Hamšík.
Although the Slovaks finished third in the group behind Spain and Sweden with three points, they did not fit into the top four advancing teams due to a worse score of 2: 7. During the third participation in the big tournament, they did not advance to the playoffs for the first time.
“More than elimination, I regret today’s high losses. That’s not how we wanted to say goodbye to the Euro. We need to forget about the match with Spain and move on,” said midfielder Ondrej Duda. “Two and a half matches here were good from us and we have something to build on,” Hamšík added.
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