Banik held on to win, and it's safe to say that Slavia will be joining them in the final. Slavia up 3-0 just after half and they will likely have plenty of chances to get more. That Slavia are better than Sparta this year is clear, but they just showed the match stats and its 11-0 in shots on goal. This is two very embarrassing matches by Sparta in a row during an already poor season, surely they have to make a managerial change.
Sparta have indeed terminated Scasny's contract, which seamed inevitable after the last two matches. I believe this is the 7th managerial change at Sparta since 2015.
I watched the youtube highlights, 10 minutes and it was all Slavia, should have put 6 passed them but none of our forwards know how to score. At least Van Buren does other things well while Skoda has just been worthless this season; shame because he used to be our best.
What news sources do you usually use for Czech football, especially a good source for Slavia? Anything in English?
The season's first phase is now over, and the top contenders (which now is really just Slavia and Plzen) both ended with victories: Slavia 2 : 1 Olomouc Plzen 4 : 0 Dukla Opava 0 : 3 Sparta Jablonec 4 : 0 Ostrava Karvina 2 : 1 Slovan Liberec Boleslav 3 : 0 Zlin Slovacko 1 : 1 Bohemians Teplice 0 : 0 Pribram This means that we move onto 3 break out groups: Championship Group: Slavia, Plzen, Sparta, Jablonec, Ostrava, and Liberec Europa League playoff: Mlada Boleslav, Olomouc, Zlin, and Teplice Relegation Group: Bohemians, Slovacko, Opava, Pribram, Karvina, and Dukla There used to be an English blog called Czefootball but its no longer active, the author is still active on twitter. Twitter in general will be the best source as there are a fair number of British expats that support Czech teams and many Czech sports journalists are bilingual but don't publish in English regularly. Including Czech sources (assuming you can use translate like google), I use a few sources including just the sports section of regular news sources, the biggest sources for just sport news are probably iSport.cz (sort of a sports tabloid so don't believe everything they post re:transfers), eurofotbal.cz (most specialized for soccer). Also if you want to follow Slavia specifically slavistickenoviny.cz is a good source.
In much happier health news, David Lischka of Jablonec and the U-21 national team has been allowed to resume training after having surgery to correct a heart condition that was found during a medical test for a transfer to Sparta.
Revisiting my preseason prediction which was actually fairly close. The super structure is great for adding good quality matches, but with 5 matches and the current point spreads it's hard to imagine much will change at the top. Slavia is already guaranteed top 2 and Plzen I think only needs one point or Sparta to drop points for the same. In Belgium they halve the points total for the breakout, which may create more competition, but seems to punish teams that had strong seasons. Sparta and Jablonec are 12 and 6 points ahead of 5th place, so they are also likely to be top 4 barring a collapse + strong performance by Banik. Liberec would likely have had a better path to Europe if they finished 7th place. The relegation group is a bit more interesting, Dukla is doomed at this point, but Karvina have been on a bit of run and may actually do well in a group of the weakest teams. The most interesting path though has to be the Europa league section, all teams that on their day can beat the other and the winner has a playoff against 4th (or 5th I believe if Slavia wins the MOL cup, which I think they will) place of the Championship group for the final Europa league spot. Update projections: Champions: Slavia 2nd Champions League qualification spot: Plzen Europa League: Sparta, Jablonec, and... Sigma Olomouc Olomouc started terribly but they've been one of the best teams in spring, and I think can beat Ostrava and the other teams in the Europa League group. This all gets blown up if Ostrava manages to win the cup. Relegation: Dukla... that's probably it I think that Pribram and Opava will be the other two that take on 2nd and 3rd place in the 2. Liga, and from what I've seen both of those teams will literally run Jihlava and whoever gets 3rd place (hopefully Brno) out of the stadium. Ceske Budejovice is the only First division quality team in 2. Liga and they will replace Dukla.
I was actually wondering how the new structure worked points wise, so it sounds like its just an additional matches but the totals carry over then. I think I just prefer a regular season, but that at least is better than starting the groups from zero. I read on twitter that Slavia is hiring a special train to take fans to the cup final? That sounds awesome but the fact that's even an option seems so weird as an American.
The superstructure is mostly a sort of compromise approach to solve the longtime issue of too few matches, and even more so, too few high quality matches in the Czech league. The best solution was probably to shrink the league to 10 or 12 teams and play 4 rounds each, but that is a hard sell to low budget teams that barely survive relegation in the current system. Looking at the scores today, I think it's safe to say Teplice will not be advancing in the Europa League group, Mlada Boleslav are absolutely hammering them in Teplice right now. It's 0:6 and only halftime. They are also "selling" their allotted tickets for 1 Kc because Olomouc on a weeknight is a tough sell for a team in Prague.
Of course the first full time result of our superstructure designed to increase the number of competitive matches ends 0:8; Teplice seem to have forgot its not off season yet.
Also the first controversy of the superstructure era, should this count as record since it took 31 matches instead of 30? Komlicenko scored 2 today so 2011/12 Lafata had 1 more goal through 30. Nikolaj Komličenko řádí! 💪 Dnes se trefil dvakrát a překonal rekord Davida Lafaty v počtu vstřelených gólů v rámci jedné sezony! 🎯⭐ 26 Komličenko (2018/19)⭐ 25 Lafata (2011/12) pic.twitter.com/7qBcMPgzW9— FORTUNA:LIGA (@fortunaligacz) May 3, 2019
Liberec turned our match into a frustrating foul-fest. We definitely need a top striker and I've seen rumors that we'll sign Komlicenko. In the meantime, Jablonec would do us a big favor beating Plzen today.
It was looking good for you until Plzen brought Kayamba in, that is one of the biggest impacts by a late sub I've ever seen. Still Jablonec dominate most of the match so very unlucky (and great performance by the Plzen keeper. I wouldn't be surprised if Komlicenko goes to Slavia, but I'm not convinced hes anything more than a good striker having a great year. Champions group results Sparta 3 - 0 Ostrava : Harsh score for Banik, but simply put Sparta took their chances while their opponents didn't. Slovan 0 - 0 Slavia: More or less the boring and high foul engagement described by Slavia_do_toho. Plzen 2 - 1 Jablonec: Jablonec were ahead most of match, but Plzen scored 2 goals in the last 10 minutes. This means Slavia and Plzen are both guaranteed top 2, but only 2 points separate them. Sparta more or less guaranteed 3rd as well. Europa playoff Semi-final leg 1: Teplice 0 - 8 Mlada Boleslav: I think its safe to say Mlada Boleslav will advance... Zlin 1 - 0 Olomouc: Still a tight tie, one distraction for Olomouc is that their manager is now considered the front runner for the Sparta job. Relegation Group Opava 1 - 0 Karvina : massive late goal for Opava puts them 5 points clear Slovacko 5 - 1 Pribram : Pribram are likely safe from direct drop, but look likely for the playoff, meanwhile Slovacko looks safe. Dukla 1 - 1 Bohemians: poor result for Bohemians who still have some work to do. Dukla are still done.
I would still take Komlicenko if he can be half as good as this season, our best goal scorers are all midfielders. I saw 3 other rumors based on the Slavia website mentioned and am not very familiar. Any thoughts on Filip Nguyen, David Hovorka, and Martin Graiciar?
Overall, I would say odd transfer targets for Slavia. Nguyen - was a highly rated youth goalkeeper at Sparta, but only became a starting 1. Liga keeper this season (despite being I think around 26 years old) with Liberec. He's been arguably the best keeper in the league this season, but I don't know what he'd really add to Slavia. You have Kolar who is a top 3 league keeper this year, younger, and has proven himself over a longer time at a higher level. Hovorka - Decent defender for our league, but don't really see him adding much at all but depth. I also think his contract is still with Sparta and doubt they'd be looking to have him move to Slavia. Graiciar - This would be a loan, Graiciar is a youth national team striker that is at Fiorentina. He's sort of at that point where he isn't ready for the first team there, but no longer a youth player. He spent half a season with Liberec last season on loan, and looked good overall though his goal count wasn't that impressive. I suspect this would only be if Slavia falls short in getting a quality striker for permanent move.
Ceske Budejovice have secured direct promotion to the 1. Liga with 3 matches left to play. Best team in 2. Liga all season, so well deserved. Jihlava are almost guaranteed a playoff position, most likely 2nd place. Brno are in 3rd and I don't even want to make predictions yet at this point because there are several teams that could still catch us.
The most decisive match of the season is Sunday as Plzen travels to Prague to take on Slavia. A Slavia win moves them very close to the title, and a Plzen win puts them a point ahead heading into the final stretch of the championship group. Slavia fortunate to have home field for this fixture as the homeside has won this matchup (often very decisively) in every match the past 3 seasons.
Yikes, thanks for the input, but that doesn't sound too promising but I'm sure there will be some international targets as well. Komlicenko scored again today so I'm still all for signing him. Right now I am just looking forward to the Plzen match.
Plzen barely got the ball over midfield the first half, but we aren't getting good enough chances. I have a bad feeling something stupid will happen
Yeah, looks like Slavia have done it. 5 pts clear and 3 matches to go looks hard to catch. Part of me wanted Plzen to win for the drama, but they had so many lucky results this year that Slavia deserves it. No team in our league does better in an open match than yours, Plzen were doomed the moment they needed to score. I wasn't very convinced by the penalty call though, but I am watching on a stream so hard to say.
While Slavia/Plzen was the headline match of the day, the best was definitely Olomouc 3 - 2 Zlin (3-3a Aggregate) with the visitors barely holding on during a late bombardment from Olomouc. Zlin will take on Mlada Boleslav in the final of the Europa League tournament of the super structure. Other Champion group matches Sparta 1 - 0 Liberec Jablonec 2 - 0 Ostrava Europa League Mlada Bolelav 1 - 1 Teplice (9-1 aggregate) Relegation group Bohemians 1905 0 - 0 Slovacko Opava 3 - 2 Dukla Pribram 1 - 0 Karvina In 2. Liga both Brno and Hradec both won, so the battle for 3rd place is now a 2 team race. We have a 2 point edge, but still no room for error.
Slavia can officially win the league today if they get a better result against Jablonec than Plzen does against Sparta (yes, Sparta could help Slavia win a title). If Plzen wins and Slavia loses though then it sets up a tense remaining schedule.
Well Sparta are not helping us at the moment, but I think it's more because they suck than deliberately losing.