Czech Republic coach Miroslav Koubek has responded to his South African counterpart Hugo Broos’ comments that his side don’t like to play and relied on long balls in their Group A match on Thursday.
Both sides came into their second encounter at the 2026 FIFA World Cup needing a win to keep their hopes of advancing out of the group alive following defeats to Mexico and South Korea.
However, they had to settle for a 1-1 draw in Atlanta, with Broos’ Bafana gallantly clawing back from a 1-0 deficit to earn the all important point.
In the post-match press conference the Belgian praised his charges, while criticising the opponents’ game approach. In his response Koubek said he and Broos saw things differently.
“Well that is his opinion, he may have such an opinion but my opinion is different”, said Koubek.
“We are sorry about the results. I agree with you that the first half was better. We played better in the first half but I do not agree that South Africa had many chances. I did not see these chances.
“What did we lack? I think that we could have played better against Bafana. Bafana is very good in keeping the ball. They had very long possessions of the ball we should have done much more.
“Sometimes there might have been the impression that our opponent was better because they were on the ball but they did not have that many chances as we did.”
