The head coach of Kazakhstan's national football team has shared his expectations ahead of the upcoming UEFA Nations League match against Slovakia, infohub.kz reports.
The match will take place on November 16 at Astana Arena. Kick-off is at 20:00 Kazakhstan time.
The upcoming fixture will be Kazakhstan's last in the current edition of the tournament. Their opponents, Slovakia, have already secured first place in the group.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, the Kazakhstan coach acknowledged that the results of previous matches had fallen short of the expectations of the coaching staff and the players.
"If you look back at the previous five matches, the results were not what we had hoped for. It is a disappointment for the coaching staff and for me personally, as well as for the players themselves.
We always strive to achieve the highest possible results. Of course, we understand that we may not be the favourites in our group, but before the tournament began we set ourselves higher goals, which unfortunately we were unable to achieve," van 't Schip said.
Despite the disappointing results, the head coach stressed that the team intends to fight for victory in the final match and finish its Nations League campaign with dignity.
"Tomorrow we have our final match. We want to show our best qualities, fight for a positive result and finish the tournament with dignity. I believe this is very important not only for us, but above all for the fans in Kazakhstan. We will do everything possible to achieve this," the specialist added.
Recall that ahead of the final round, Kazakhstan had played five group-stage matches. In their previous outing, the national team played away against Moldova on November 13.
The match against Slovakia will conclude Kazakhstan's participation in the current edition of the UEFA Nations League.