Santi Denya: I am very proud of the players' performance; they always tried to play their own style.

The Czech national team has just finished its match against defending world champions Spain. In Oviedo, Santi Denía's Czech team ultimately lost 1-3, with Gírí Slavár scoring the only goal of the game. After the match, Santi Denía gave an interview to Czech television sports channel, summarizing the game.  

Santi Denya said: "I am proud of the players' performance today. They kept trying to play their own way and actively competed against Spain, but it is very difficult to play against such a strong team. At the beginning, we may have given Spain too much respect. Fortunately, the team responded in time in the second half and played very well. I think we should continue to move forward in this direction."  

"Undoubtedly, losing without points is not the result we wanted, but that's the intensity of the UEFA Nations League. A 90-minute match actually involves a lot of local confrontations, and our biggest improvement in this game was on the defensive end. The team's positioning in the defensive zone was more compact, and the overall performance was better than before."  

“We tried some changes at halftime, and those adjustments proved effective. The team then created some good scoring opportunities, so the game could have ended very differently. I don’t want to comment on the referee; I just want to emphasize that I am very proud of the players’ performance.”  

The Czech Republic will face England away on Wednesday, with Wembley Stadium serving as their final stop on this international break. England thrashed Croatia 7-0 in their earlier match on Saturday. Santi Denya stated, "Our focus now is on helping the players recover their fitness, as this schedule is quite demanding for them. We need to get all the players in the squad into good shape and fully prepared for the final match against England."  

Image source: Internet/Czech National Team Official Website