Czech League football 2016 and on

Over 60 minutes in and as a spectator this is the kind of match you just want to see end. Chelsea are bringing Hazard, who they hoped to rest.

Chelsea just had a decent shot from corner kick, but overall neither team looks likely to do much. Slavia have since the first 20 minutes only shown spurts and generally don't look to have much in attack.

 

Slavia, and the match, are back to life following a great shot by Taore on a counter attack, it met an even greater save. Seems to have brought Slavia back to life though and even with Hazard and Kante on Chelsea look low energy.

Slavia need a goal to have any chance as I doubt Chelsea will be this way in London.

I'm watching this to see the Czech team, but from scorelines Benfica - Frankfurt would have been a better use of working from home.

 

Chelsea get a goal on their 2nd shot on target (to be fair Slavia I think have just 4 and only 2 with any purpose), Alonso gets between the defense on the cross. Chelsea should advance, Slavia had a chance today but didn't play well enough themselves to take advantage.

 

While Chelsea will be heavy favorites, a big bonus for Slavia will be having Soucek back.

While I don't think Slavia played that well, despite what the media consensus is saying, there were some really strong performances by Traore, Kral and Deli.

I think a lot of people are saying Slavia played well because they held Chelsea to 2 shots on target, but I think its more that both teams were poor in attack. Slavia had 2 good chances that forced saves, but if they had played how they did in the 2nd leg against Sevilla or Genk would have likely beaten Chelsea by 2 goals.

 

Jablonec about to guarantee it's spot in the championship group. Plzen beat Ostrava 2 - 1, so Banik not in yet.

The big match of the week is Slavia hosting Sparta today. Sparta haven't won a derby in 3 years, and hard to see that streak ending at the Eden Arena this season. The one advantage is Slavia have played a lot more fixtures recently due to Europa League, but Sparta are still without Dockal.

 

Slavia are ahead 1-0 at halftime, and probably should have had 1 or 2 penalties on top of it. The officiating judgement calls have been lopsided in Sparta's favor, but Slavia are just a much better team so I suspect a 3-0 or 3-1 victory in the end.

 

Sparta equalized early 2nd half on a magnificent strike from Plavsic. Slavia still looking the better team, but may regret wasted chances (and the bad calls in the first half).

 

Regardless of outcome, its abundantly clear the Slavia needs an upgrade over Skoda up front, he's slowed down too much and has little use outside of corners. Too many times in big matches they control possession but don't have a clinical finisher.

 

Sparta hang on for a point they probably don't deserve. Slavia had plenty of chances to kill the match that they failed to take advantage of, including Skoda blowing a one-on-one against the Sparta keeper.

 

There is a bit of fall out from the Slavia - Sparta match concerning officiating and VAR. The match official is saying that he was not shown an angle that clearly showed Husbauer being taken down by the keeper, but broadcasting network has refuted this. He also claimed that he didn't consider Soucek being (blatantly) taken down on the corner to be a foul, although the officiating commission said both should have been penalties.

I generally like VAR and am glad to see our league be early adapters, but its roll out in the Czech first division this season has been a bit bumpy. Officiating is a major weakness of our league anyway, so it's not surprising that even VAR would be inconsistent.

 

A day of strange results in 2. Liga will likely put Brno in 3rd place (meaning an inside track for the final playoff spot) if they hold for another 15 minutes or so. Still 7 matches remaining but on our current form we may actually still have an outside chance at promotion.

 

Chelsea vs Slavia is just over an our away, the lineups have been announced. Slavia's starting 11 looks designed to frustrate Chelsea in hopes of a close match at which point they'd bring on Stoch, Van Buren or Olayinka to try and grab a late goal. Chelsea are starting Hazard who was 2nd half subs in the first leg, so they are clearly going the opposite route hoping to have a first half goal or 2 to kill the tie off without the need for late drama.

I think its still a mistake to start Zmrhal over Stoch when you are down 1-0 already. Not sure it matters. It is interesting the Slavia play very different lineups domestically and in Europe.

 

Easy to say now that Tripsovsky got it wrong this time, although part of it is that Coufal not being fit forcing improvisation with the 3 center back formation. The should have stuck with a higher pressing lineup as this defense formation is all over the place.

 

Okay, who is that and what did he do with Sevcik? Seriously, Slavia don't give up and have some ability, but their defense was just too shambolic. I can't imagine them getting the two more they need without conceding... Although if they get one more you have to wonder how Chelsea would respond.

As boring as the first leg was, this is a very open match.

Theres the Sevcik I know... score 2 goals from outside the box then whiff a sitter from 7 yards.

 

Chelsea 4 - 3 Slavia (5-3 agg)

A good European campaign for Slavia, and I suspect they are good enough to make Champions League through the champions qualifying path* where they'll play teams like Genk (who they beat 4-1). The gap in resources just too much, and really just a terrible defensive strategy going into this match put them out before they could collect themselves.

*I also continue to pick this team to win the league.

Also Slavia's fans made an incredible showing in London, at times were much louder than the home supporters.

 

As that is the end of European football for Czech sides this season (we lasted as long as Portugal and Italy), we are now confirmed to finish the season at 13th in UEFA coefficients.

The Austrian and Dutch leagues are the 2 in front of us, and the Greek and Croatian behind. 13 is about where we've been on average the past few years (I think we've been as high as 11), but either way a good sign for a league that used to languish in closer to 20th position during our worst seasons.

 

Every first division match this week has the same kick-off time. Most are fairly lopsided match-ups with clear favorites, the highlight is probably the Slezske derby between Opava and Ostrava.

The superstructure groupings will be mostly set after this week.

 

The favorites are actually struggling, and Sparta fans are probably going to riot as they are losing to relegation bound Karvina 0-3 in Prague. Scasny has to be done.

 

Yeah, weird day...

Zlin 1 - 0 Slavia : ... I think all the extra fixtures may have finally caught up to Slavia, but Zlin also looked the best they have since the autumn part of the season.

Pribram 1 - 1 Plzen : ... Another weak away performance by Plzen. Matousek helped out Slavia from his loan by equalizing the match ending Plzen's chances of catching Slavia during the season's first phase.

Sparta 1 - 3 Karvina: ... I hate Sparta, but that's just sad especially at Letna.

Bohemains 1 - 0 Jablonec: out of surprised faces, but another upset.

Liberec 3 - 2 Slovacko: the score isn't odd, the fact Libor Kozak got a hattrick of entirely penalties is.

Ostrava 2 - 0 Opava: finally a match that went as expected. I believe this guarantees Ostrava in the Championship group.

Olomouc 2 - 0 Teplice: meh, good for Olomouc turning their season around

Dukla 2 - 2 Ml. Boleslav : Dukla rallied for a draw, still the worst team in the league by some margin.

 

I thought Baluta looked good in limited minutes earlier this year, but just doesn't seem to fit with Slavia. Slavia's problem to me is that they rely on midfielders shooting from distance and set pieces to score, they need a true striker.

I was mostly watching the Plzen match, and will be interested to see how Matousek fits in with Slavia after a summer of training.

 

Plzen have signed Adam Hlousek of Legia Warsaw for next season. Even when they "rejuvenate" they sign a 30-year-old.

Just based on coefficient the Polish league is a fair bit lower in quality at least than our top teams (including Plzen), so not sure what to make of this signing. Hlousek did well here and in Germany when he was younger (was surprised that he actually has 8 national team appearances), but his main asset was speed and he is likely only getting slower at this point.

 

Also tomorrow is the cup semifinals, which are Slavia - Sparta (there will actually be 4 big Prague derbies this year between the cup and super structure) and Banik vs Bohemians.

Bohemians winning would sort of be chaos for our European cup allotments as the rest of the teams are all in the top tier of the league.

 

I would say the cup is similar to other domestic cups in Europe, meaning it's sort of a complete afterthought for first division teams until about the quarterfinals. Slavia are quite focused on a title and Champions League for next season and mostly would just want a chance at a double (especially at Sparta's expense); Ostrava and Sparta could make Europa League via domestic finish but could bypass any qualification phases with the cup... Then there is Bohemians who are on the lower end of mid-table and have no other realistic path to European football.

Banik are up 1-0 in their match with about 30 minutes remaining, so the window is closing for Bohemians (which no offence to Bohemians is probably better for the league as they'd most likely struggle).

I missed those rumors at the time but in interviews about the signing he said something like "I still have time for America, but right now I want to compete in European competitions."