We had little courage, comments on Pader’s elimination in the Euro quarterfinals

Ondřej Paděra, the best scorer in the history of the Czech national team and the Super League of small football, scored a single goal at the European Championship. This was the reason why the national team in Košice, Slovakia, was eliminated in the quarter-finals after a 0:0 draw and an unsuccessful penalty shootout with Romania. “I didn’t get so many chances, I need more support from my teammates,” said Paděra, the playing coach of the Blansko Super League team.

How did you return from Košice?

Disappointment prevails. Of course, the quarter-finals of the European Championship is no disgrace, and to be knocked out after penalties. However, the performance at the championship was not what we are used to. Maybe people, including us, are upset because we played different football in previous tournaments, with a lot of finishes and shots on goal, that wasn’t there now.

Why was it missing?

There are more things that made it end up like that. For one thing, there was not enough courage from us up front, we didn’t have enough crosses, there wasn’t more searching for one-on-one situations from our side. Another reason is the quality of the opponents, we didn’t face any easy opponents in the group, France, Moldova and Serbia were very good, as well as England and Romania.

I can compare in the eight years I’ve been with the national team, and before that four or six teams could win. Three years ago it expanded to seven or eight teams and now twelve or fourteen teams could easily win the championship. The Serbs finished in the eighth round, the Hungarians were knocked out relatively early, they could have played for the title too.

What else was different about this championship?

Last but not least, the indoor surface was not conducive to good play, the grass was quite scratchy, the ball was not rolling. At the tournament we watched motivational videos from the World Cup in Tunisia or the European Championship in Kiev, where we won, and it seemed to me that more football was played. In Tunisia, we played later in the day, the dew was falling and the pitch was moving more, and I thought the opponents were more footballing, with six or eight goals in the game.

In Košice I thought it was more futsal, the teams had very futsal habits, the knockout matches where no goals were scored speak for themselves. The Romanians didn’t score a single goal in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. I see that as the biggest aspect of why it wasn’t the same.

After the final 1:4 loss to Serbia in the regular group, you were promoted from second place. Could things have been different in the play-offs if you had won the group?

In my opinion, probably not. If we had beaten Serbia and finished first in the group, we would have gone to the Hungarians in the eighth round. I’m not saying we wouldn’t have knocked them out, but we could have gone out a round earlier. Even though the English were very good, I still found them more playable than the Hungarians. It worked out in the pool that we went to Romania in the quarterfinals.

They hit three sticks and we had almost no chance, but we played responsibly at the back. The game went to penalties, where it’s a fifty-fifty lottery. If we had been first in the group, it might have turned out differently in the knockout fights, you can’t choose. Small football has improved a lot, maybe two or three teams were weak, the rest are very strong, tactically and physically mature.

In the shootout with Romania two Czech players failed, why didn’t you kick?

I didn’t finish the game, I played the first half and had one substitution in the second half. If nobody wanted to, it would have been obvious from my position that I would have been one of the first to go, but some guys were very confident at that moment and claimed penalties. I left the ones who were on the pitch at that moment to finish the game while I sat on the bench for twenty minutes.

I think they could have been in a better mental state. If there was a fourth or fifth series, it probably would have come down to me. It wasn’t that anyone was scared and didn’t want to go, it was more that the guys automatically went in believing in themselves, so I honestly didn’t get into it that much.

However, the European Championship did not catch you at your best, you scored the only goal for Moldova, how much did you miss your traditional teammate Jan Koudelka?

I’ve been to World and European Championships before with Koudy, we were both there and it’s no secret that we are used to each other. I missed him a lot in the game. I’m not a strong one-on-one player, I benefit more from, for example, having a good selection of space in the opponent’s penalty area, when we get into a two-on-one, three-on-two overlap, I’m able to deal with it, that’s where I’m most useful to the team.

But there were very few of those situations, I couldn’t even help more. Koudy was missed by the whole team and me, but another thing is that they relied on the synergy of Brno in one five and Prague in the other five, which was quite difficult for me. It speaks for everything when I didn’t play everything for A in the tournament and for B I got two or three chances, I scored one goal from them, there was nothing more. If I had fifteen chances like in previous championships it’s different, but in my case there is nothing to judge.

The Czech national team is going through a generational change, do you expect an improvement?

It’s true that players from the golden generation are leaving, which will be appreciated only in later years. The team is undergoing a certain renewal and it may take two or three years to get back to the top. We can take the best in Super League small-sided football, but here is clear evidence that the international level is still two levels away. Maybe in a year or two we’ll make a big breakthrough, but every year it gets harder.

For the first time in history, the European title is held by Azerbaijan, who beat Romania 1-0 in the final. Is he in the right hands?

I think so. After our elimination, I watched its semi-final against Kazakhstan on Friday and I must say, it was excellent football on both sides. Azerbaijan had two difference players at seven and nine (Mirmehdi Rzayev and Orkhan Aliyev – ed.), the former was fantastic at creating play, the latter played up top, both skilful. They made it to the title.

I saw with my own eyes his game in the quarter-final against Slovakia, then the semi-final against Kazakhstan and I am glad that Azerbaijan won the championship. In situations where many teams in their own penalty area prefer to take the ball forward, he still tried to play football and succeeded.

In the stands I was quite amazed at the situations his players could come out of, even when they were losing and then leading, they still played the same way. No concrete, no defending, they wanted to play and I like teams like that a lot. I think it’s only good that Azerbaijan won, at least everyone knows that small football is not only about Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, but there are other teams to be reckoned with.

Source: Small Football