In stark contrast to his captain’s fiery outburst, head coach Ran Ben Shimon struck a contrite tone, shouldering sole responsibility for his side’s tactical and psychological collapse.
Conceding his team failed to handle the heightened atmosphere, the tactician admitted: “Huge disappointment, the blame is on me. I thought we had prepared properly. We hadn’t. We didn’t handle the pressure well, this is very obvious. We didn’t understand what is on our shoulders; we failed mentally, tactically.”
Turning attention to a demanding schedule on the horizon, he added: “In a few days there is another game against Ireland [and] there is a game with Kosovo. We have to find the energy to wake up, to rise again, to try to deal with the pressure in a different way.”