Viktoria Plzeň drew 1-1 with Lazio in the return leg and their Europa League journey is over. At the post-match press conference, the coach evaluated not only the team´s performance today, but also their entire run in this competition.

Coach, what are your feelings at the moment? Is it pride that you have managed to keep up with Lazio again or is it more disappointment at the missed chances?

I feel both. I call it: one eye laughs and one eye cries. We already lost that double in Plzeň. We should have won there, no doubt about it, and instead we lost. Here in Rome, it was hard to turn it around. We promised we would try, and I think we lived up to it. We didn´t miss much, maybe if luck had been on our side. But the decisive moment came in the first game.

Would you say that´s a cruel ending?

We can be proud of our performance, but the result slipped through our fingers. I´ve already mentioned why it happened. Is it cruel? It´s sport. If you look at other matches in European competitions, it´s the details that make the difference, sometimes it´s seconds, accidental bounces or little things.

You had a substitution ready before the goal. Aren´t you sorry it didn´t happen sooner?

There was a series of unfortunate bounces and decisions that led to five minutes of pressure from the opposition. You don´t usually make substitutions at corners, players have to work out who to defend and that´s difficult. After the goal Lazio increased their activity. The problem was that our defensive structure broke down a bit and they took advantage of it. We waited for the pressure to subside and then we wanted to make substitutions. But we couldn´t get out of it, and that´s why it didn´t happen.

How would you evaluate your time in the Europa League? And which game was the best in your opinion?

This trip has shown and confirmed that we have what it takes to compete in European competitions. But at the same time it took something away from us. It´s not easy to play on multiple fronts, especially when you don´t have a wide squad, although I don´t want to make excuses for that. We are grateful that we could play in the Europa League. Now we will focus on the domestic competition.

And the best game? There were several, like the home games against Anderlecht, Real Sociedad, Ferencváros, we also gave a good performance in Frankfurt. But what I want to say: Tell me, which of those opponents outplayed us? And we faced some really top teams. That´s a huge realization for us.