Tomas Soucek was disappointed but ready to take the positives from the Czech Republic’s performance against England last night.
He had a 45 minutes battle with Declan Rice and debatedly came on top and later was unfortunate in seeing a decent chance fly wide of the England goal.
Most of us were pleased to see him and the Czech lads progress into the last 16 despite finishing third in the group.
That maintains much of our interest in the competition beyond England’s improved performance over the one we saw against Scotland which was put into sharper context by the nation;s 3-1 defeat by Croatia.
“It was definitely possible to get more out of the match because we lost,” said the Hammers’ No28 “The beginning of the match was dominated by England and in the second half it was much more balanced.
“But we lacked patience and calmness in front of their penalty area. We have to improve that, because the area before the final phase was not good. I think we fought well in the fight against a team with so many stars, we wanted to succeed, but it didn’t work out. For my chance I wanted to send the ball inside the post, so it’s a pity I didn’t succeed.
“We have to learn from that match and use the positives in the match in the next round. We wanted to be first in the group, in the end we fell to third place. But we are in the round of 16 of the Euros, so we will wait for a specific opponent and we must prepare for the match as best we can after that.”
Having finished third in Group D, the Czech Republic could still face either Group C winners the Netherlands in Budapest on Sunday 27 June or the Group E winners, who will be either Sweden, Slovakia or Spain, in Glasgow next Tuesday 29 June.