Artis Coach Fumes Over Officiating After Loss to Baník: "Everything Was Against Us"

Football club Artis Brno fell 0:1 to Baník Ostrava in a Czech league clash, and after the final whistle visiting coach Roman Nádvorník didn't hold back in criticizing the officiating crew — a comment that earned him a yellow card from referee Jan Vsetečka.

"Everything was against us, but I don't want to read tomorrow that I was whining," Nádvorník said with a smile when asked about the booking. He admitted the card was deserved, but said it was provoked by what was happening on the pitch. The coach was particularly irritated that the referee added ten minutes of stoppage time in the first half but only three in the second. "I told the referee he was ruining all the team's work, our entire week of preparation. I don't understand why only three minutes were added in the second half. None of the officials could explain it to me," Nádvorník said with a shrug.

A Contentious Disallowed Goal

Artis made a surprisingly strong start away from home: as early as the 4th minute, center-back David Šimek came close to opening the scoring with a header. "The first twelve minutes were very good on our part — we pressed high and created two chances. Then we made a mistake building up play, the opponent pounced on the ball and punished us," the coach said, referring to the only goal that counted, scored by Ostrava's Michal Kohout in the 8th minute.

According to Nádvorník, his side then went through a difficult ten-minute stretch, but did manage to find the net — only for the goal to be ruled out. After a cross from Dominik Prajsler, the ball bounced around inside the goal, and the referee initially awarded the goal, but the VAR officials asked for an offside check. "It was meant to be a cross, but the ball flew toward the far post. As far as I heard, nobody touched it, so the only explanation is that someone confused the goalkeeper by standing in an offside position. Shame — it could have been a beautiful goal," Prajsler described the incident.

Nádvorník demanded an explanation but never got one. "I would have been very happy if they had shown me even one frame of someone blocking the goalkeeper's view of the ball. Nobody touched the ball, and it flew in right by the post. And our player, who was supposedly offside, was standing a metre and a half away. I don't know what else to say," the coach said, baffled.

A Disallowed Penalty and a Red Card

In the first half alone, during which the ball was actually in play for just sixteen minutes, two more goals were scored — neither home player Boula's strike nor Papaleli's equalizer stood after VAR intervention. In the second half, referee Vsetečka, after being called to the pitch-side monitor by his colleagues, overturned a penalty he had already awarded to Baník for a high boot by Boula on Martin Pospíšil.

Playing with a man advantage after Sinyavsky's red card in the 74th minute didn't help Artis level the score. "It really frustrates us — we had plenty of chances, but there were also plenty of contentious moments. I haven't properly reviewed any of them yet, so I can't really judge. We have to believe everything was called correctly. But we also botched a lot of chances ourselves through carelessness," Prajsler assessed the match.

In the end, Nádvorník came to terms with the defeat. "We lost 0:1 partly because we didn't convert our chances. Still, I think our performance was decent. In the first half we lacked composure on the ball and gave it away too easily far too often. But in the second half, even though the opponent was down to ten men, we played it on the ground, built things up through combination play, and tried to create chances. The team deserves credit for the second half," the coach stressed.

The team badly missed its top scorer — forward Kadri Adediran, who has two goals this season — after he picked up an injury in training. "If he had been here, the match would have gone completely differently — we would have been much stronger up front. Right now he's our best player. But we won't cry about it. We were hoping Bögel would find his form and help us in the box on crosses, but he's not available either, so we're working with what we have. We need to bring someone in," Nádvorník concluded.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by sport.cz