Courtesy: UEFA.com


Neumann confident of Czech improvement

Friday 27 November 2009

by Paul Saffer

At the last UEFA European Futsal Championship in November 2007 in Porto. Tomáš Neumann's Czech Republic suffered three defeats, conceding 17 goals. However, since then they have been to the 2008 FIFA Futsal World Cup and in qualifying for the 2010 European finals they clinched their place in stunning fashion, captain Martín Dlouhý scoring twice in the last minute to beat Croatia 3-2 moments after their opponents had gone ahead. Now Neumann is targeting first place in Group A, where they meet Azerbaijan and hosts Hungary in Budapest from 21 January.

uefa.com: What do you think of the draw?

Tomáš Neumann: It's very interesting group because I think that anybody can win it. The group has no favourites. I think that everybody is on the same level.


uefa.com: What do you think about the Hungary team?

Neumann: I think Hungary have a very good team, they have very quick players, very good technique. I am looking forward to the match against Hungary.


uefa.com: And Azerbaijan?

Neumann: They are a very difficult team because they have four players from Brazil in the team, and I think three players from Russia.


uefa.com: In qualifying, it was a pretty exciting finish, by the looks of things. What was it like in that final game?

Neumann: I thought that anyone could have won that group. We qualified by winning against Croatia, it was a horrible match but we won and it was nice.


uefa.com: Two years ago in Porto you lost all your games. Do you think this time you have a stronger team?

Neumann: Yes. We lost the first game against Romania but this time we want to win the first game; we will play against Azerbaijan and we want to win.


uefa.com: How far do you think Czech Republic can go in the tournament?

Neumann: We would like to win the group, because it means we can then play against the Group B runners-up; it's very hard to play against [likely Group B winners] Italy. For us it's better to play against Belgium or Ukraine.








Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com