“Congratulations to Japan,” said the former midfielder, who is the second-most capped player for his country with 119 appearances. “It was a really painful result. We had chances during the game and we could have scored with the penalty.

 

“We tried to win this tournament but I have to say that my players played very well. The first half was very challenging and in the second half, we did not take our chances.”

Kapadze had to do without the services of key trio Abdukodir Khusunov, Abbosbek Fayzullaev and Hojimat Erkinov, who were recalled by their European clubs ahead of the final. However, he was reluctant to use that as an excuse, noting that they had already helped Uzbekistan achieve their target of qualifying for their first ever Olympic Games.

 

“Maybe if our foreign (based) players played, we could do more,” he said. “Of course, we are better with these players but today, we also played well.”

The result confirmed that Uzbekistan will make their Olympic debut in Group B of the men’s football tournament, which features Spain, Egypt and the Dominican Republic, and Kapadze vowed that his team will recover from this setback in two months’ time in Paris.

 

“We will start preparing from today and this tournament has also helped us,” he said.

 

“We will start to analyse our opponents in the coming days and use the upcoming Fifa dates to prepare to our best. We will come back better at the Olympic Games.”