Advocaat hails 'great result' in opener

Dick Advocaat described Russia's 4-1 defeat of the Czech Republic as "a very good result", but insisted his team "have to be sharper" as they got their UEFA EURO 2012 campaign under way. Czech coach Michal Bílek paid tribute to Advocaat's "great team", and told his squad they must look forward to their remaining Group A games.

Dick Advocaat, Russia coach
When you score four goals against the Czech Republic, it's a very good result, but we should have scored more. At 2-1 it was difficult, and we have to improve in that regard, we have to be sharper. Perhaps a better team will score more against us, but for a first game, 4-1 is a good result.

Andrey Arshavin played really well, worked very hard, and I think it's important for the team the way he can play. I'm very positive about him and about the whole team. Alan Dzagoev played in all the qualifying games, and I've always said he has a lot of talent. He's been in training two-and-a-half weeks, but it's good we have Marat Izmailov and Aleksandr Kokorin to push him for a place in the side.

It's very important that we've only trained once a day. The players have played a season-and-a-half, and had just a week off. They wouldn't have been able to run anymore if we'd trained more. It was a conscious decision to train just once a day, and it paid off against Italy and again today. You could see the benefits it reaps. On Tuesday, it's going to be another interesting game for both teams in another great stadium.

Michal Bílek, Czech Republic coach
I think we started well, had possession of the ball, and created some good situations that we weren't able to finish. Then we gave the ball away, they broke quickly and scored. That was a mistake, but Russia are a great team with great quality. We had problems with the combinations of the Russians. They had a lot of chances. We couldn't get the ball, they played with just one or two touches, and that's why they had so many chances.

We tried to change things. We managed to get back into it, and wanted a different result. But we weren't patient, we lost the ball, and didn't have enough strength. Russia must have been very happy about that. We'd watched many Russian games. They're a great team, with great technique, great combinations, and they showed us today that they're a very good side.

There are three matches in each group, and each match is important. We didn't get a good result in the first one, we have to do better in the remaining two. We're all very disappointed, but we have to get over this result. We have to show our strength, our team spirit. I think our team can give a better account of themselves in the next two games. We're going to look forward now.