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Updated 11/25/2023 12:11 PM
According to the London media, Vladimír Coufal’s return to the club after the trouble during the national team break went completely smoothly. The Czech footballer won’t have any problem at West Ham, on the contrary, it seems that he is about to extend his contract.
“Bad Boy Vladimír Coufal has been welcomed back to the team,” reads the headline on the fan website Claret and Hugh, whose information directly from the club is often cited by other London media covering events at West Ham.
“His big mistake of staying in a nightclub until the early hours of the morning two days before the Czech match was immediately forgiven,” writes the magazine and even quotes an insider, according to whom people at the club were rather relieved when the right-back returned to the club earlier and without risk of possible injury.
“For us, he is number one for the position of right-back and we will definitely extend his contract before the end of the current season. What happened during the international break will not change that,” Claret and Hugh quote “their man”.
Thirty-one-year-old Coufal was eliminated from the national team together with Jakub Brabec and Jan Kuchta. The trio were at the Olomouc discotheque from Saturday to Sunday until the early hours of the morning and subsequently missed Monday’s match against Moldova, after which the national team celebrated advancing to the European Championship.
On Tuesday, Coufal apologized via his social media.
“I made a huge mistake, which I will regret for the rest of my life. For the first time in my life, I violated my own principles, which I believed in and strictly followed throughout my career. I deprived myself of a beautiful experience with the team. Everyone who knows me knows that that this is the highest punishment for me,” said the former celebrity and emphasized that “something like this will never happen again”.
While in the Czech Republic he was subjected to rather harsh criticism from football legends for his behavior, former Hammers striker Frank McAvennie offered a completely opposite view in the British Isles.
“He didn’t commit any crime, I don’t understand why he was kicked out of the team,” the 64-year-old Glasgow native, who scored goals for the Hammers during two spells in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, told Football Insider.
“Rules are meant to be broken. He was out drinking with two of his teammates. That’s not a crime. Even in the national team there are guys who like to go out for a beer. I don’t understand why they sent him home. I can’t believe it to be honest ,” McAvennie said.
He predicted that the incident would not have the slightest negative impact on Coufal’s tenure upon his return to the club.
“The fans will welcome him, all they saw was that he went for a beer. It’s just a shame that it’s being made into such an affair,” added the man who has collected five international starts in Scottish colours.
On Saturday afternoon, Coufal should not be missing from the starting line-up of West Ham, who will visit Burnley, the ground of the newcomer and the last unit of the table. In the last seven league matches, the Czech defender has played a full portion of minutes, and has four goal assists to his credit. He is under contract in East London until June 30 next year.
