After Turkey's 2-1 victory over the Czech Republic in the third round of the UEFA Europa League group stage on June 27, Beijing time, Czech captain Sauček was interviewed. He reviewed the course of the match and gave his opinion on the referee's decision.
Sauchek began by commenting on his team's opening performance, "We started the game very well, showed a proactive attitude and managed to press our opponents. But in the 20th minute of the game we had our first problem."
He went on to express misgivings about the referee's calls, "I think the referee was very unfortunate in general in his calls today. The penalties had an impact on us, but even so, our players kept fighting until the last moment. I would like to pay my heartfelt respect to them, because despite the numerical disadvantage, we still had an even fight with the Turkish team."
Sauchek also mentioned the previous matches against Portugal and Georgia, "In the first match against Portugal, the referee missed a foul on Daujela by the opponent. And the game against Georgia didn't go very well, we missed a lot of chances and that should have been a game we should have won."
He concluded: "This is the biggest stage in Europe for the competition, but there are always some factors that go against us at crucial moments. Of course, that doesn't fully explain our poor performance against Georgia, a game in which we did waste a lot of chances. As for the refereeing, I have to say that I don't know if everything was completely fair."
