Czech midfielder: England proved stronger than Spain at Wembley

Slavia Prague midfielder Petr Sadílek has shared his impressions from the Czech national football team's first training camp under new Spanish coach Santi Denia, during which the side played Spain and England at Wembley Stadium in London. According to the player, right from the start of work with the new coach, the Czechs faced an extreme schedule — four matches against top national teams in eleven days.

England were even stronger than Spain

Asked about the main takeaway from the camp, Sadílek noted that the Czech national team came up against opponents of enormous class. He said that in every match the Czechs had decent spells of play, but before conceding the first goal the team once again failed to finish off several promising situations. In the locker room, the players agreed that England turned out to be even stronger than Spain — Sadílek says he felt it himself: the opponents played in a coordinated way, like a team that knows each other's abilities well.

A new style and Coufal's own goal

Sadílek admitted that under Denia the national team is trying to play a new style of football, with an emphasis on combination play, even though it isn't all coming together yet — he called mistakes at this stage normal. The coach has frequently changed the lineup, the players are still getting used to working with each other, and the team sometimes lacked sharpness in attack. The midfielder specifically recalled the moment of Vladimír Coufal's own goal at Wembley: the defender saw that England forward Eberechi Eze had slowed down and stopped covering the far post, and in a split second had to decide whether to clear the ball or let it run through the six-yard box. According to Sadílek, his teammates do not blame Coufal for what happened and intend to learn from it for the future.

A "deadly" schedule and injuries

Despite the results, the atmosphere in the team remained positive, Sadílek said, and he called the matches themselves invaluable experience for every player. At the same time, he described the workload as extreme: four matches against top national teams in eleven days took a heavy toll, and the Czech squad, like their opponents, suffered a good number of injuries during that stretch. Sadílek noted that only time will tell whether combining two national-team camps into such a tight schedule was the right call.

Source: sport.cz