“We had a problem with the kicked balloons. We didn’t hold the ball and they, on the contrary, immediately kicked it for us,” the young defender evaluated the botched part of the match. “She was not good from anyone. We messed up simple passes, we basically got nowhere, we were shooting like crazy. Nobody succeeded in the first half and the result corresponded to that,” added teammate Jaroslav Zelený in an interview for ČT.
Letenské missed James Gomez in a pass, which was punished by Danilo in the face of goalkeeper Peter Vindahl. “Gomi ate it up today, an individual mistake. It happens, football is sometimes cruel in this,” Zelený refused to beat his partner too much for the fatal failure. The subsequent hit by Todd Cantwell then put the Rangers on the horse. “We didn’t like it at all. It seemed to me as if we didn’t trust each other,” Zelený shook his head.
Coach Brian Priske made two changes during the break, replacing Gomez and Victor Olatunji with Tomáš Wiesner and Qazim Laci. And all of a sudden, Sparta was as if replaced, which was further enhanced by the entry of Lukáš Haraslín, later Letenský’s only scorer, half an hour before the end. “We wanted to respond to that. In the second half, we turned it around, played completely differently and reached for the equaliser. But the opponent deserved to win,” acknowledged Vitík sportingly.
Sparta did not receive any points in Scotland, thus making it very difficult to achieve one of the objectives of the autumn, i.e. progressing to the spring knockout rounds of the Europa League. The second Rangers lose three points two rounds before the end of the group stage, the first Betis five. Not at all pleasant prospects, and even for the third place, guaranteeing at least continuation in the Conference League, they will fight with Aris, the last so far…
“The group is balanced, of course we made it more difficult now. But we will fight until the end. There is nothing else left for us,” Vitík stated determinedly.
Photo: Sofascore.com
Match Rangers – Sparta in statistics
