http://isport.blesk.cz/clanek/fotba...trenoval-o-jeho-startu-se-rozhodne-vecer.html He did fly back earlier this week, but rejoined the team. I'm still not thinking its very likely he'll start. Still, there is at least a chance.
Update about Rosicky (from the press conference): His chance of playing is greater than before, but no decision until tomorrow.
Yup no Rosicky starting. I don't think Kolar is good enough especially against Portugal. Sadly I am predicting a loss today. I hope we can get Rosicky on the field for 20-30 minutes in the 2nd half.
Yeah, even though we won the Poland match, starting Kolar in that spot still bugs me. From what I've seen, at Plzen he kind of plays a withdrawn forward role, and his strengths are flicking the ball on/turning and shooting... his possession ability is nowhere near up to the role he is being given on the national team (and his style in general doesn't fit with our formation since we play a lone striker). It's not his game, Darida plays a bit more the Rosicky style, but he's young and only has 2 caps, so really the best realistic option would be to shift Plasil up... which considering how mediocre Plasil's defensive play has been, that might have been a win-win decision.
Wow, Darida was named in the starting line-up!?! I do think he's a better fit, but a huge match for the 21-year-old to get his first start.
Just saw! WOW big moment for the young man. He really has nothing to lose to be honest. If he does poorly, we just blame Bilek for starting such an inexperienced player but if he does well, he gets praised.
So what's the approach? Sit back and counter runs by Pretty Boy Ronaldo? (Wow, I like those jerseys on your link...not too wild about the euro 2012 look)
I think we will try to dominate possession and try to keep Ronaldo off the ball. I don't think Selassie will be attacking that much today. Same for Limbersky. We have to mark Nani and Ronaldo. If we shut them down, we can win.
Pretty much agree, our fullbacks will probably mainly be forward as outlets for back-passes if we are keeping the ball in the Portuguese third. Selassie may join a few counterattacks, but overall I expect he'll be staying back a bit more than usual. I think the main idea for us will be to possess the ball in the center and see if we can get a through pass to Pilar or Jiracek running centrally from the wing (which is really where our goals have been coming from anyway).
just read that Portugal's possession has been just above 40 percent, so it appears they'll let us execute that game plan...
We were doing fine for the first 30 minutes then Ronaldo started roaming around which allowed him to find space. We need to mark him much tighter. Selassie was doing well when Ronaldo was on the left. We also need to start creating some more chances.
Well we lost. Bilek really messed up by taking off Darida and bringing on Rezek. The game took a massive turn for the worse when Rezek came on. We lost possession and never left our half. Darida was at least keeping possession and passing the ball. Bilek also messed up badly by constantly playing Baros. We need to be going forward with Necid, Pekhart, Kozak, and maybe Lafata. Also we need to find a decent replacement for Rosicky just in case he gets hurt like this again. We struggled a lot without him.
Fifty-one teams started qualification for this tournament, and we were one of the last eight. All-in-all, I'm disappointed we lost (even more so how we played in the 2nd half), but everything considered we had a decent tournament. The World Cup qualifying campaign is just few months away, and we really need someone to step up at forward. Hopefully Necid and Vaclav Kadlec get back on track after injuries this past season. I agree completely about taking out Darida, he was a bit sloppy/careless as you might expect given the situation, but definite flashes of potential.
Milan Baroš is retiring from international play. This was a completely expected decision even pre-tournament, and it seems that he has said his goodbye to his National Teammates. The public announcement will be tomorrow. 93 Caps 41 Goals (2nd highest all-time for Czech team) Golden Boot UEFA Euro 2004 Euro 2004 certainly stands out, as he was absolutely on fire. (It was hard to track down highlights, but three of his goals are in this video at :42, 1:38, 2:52,
Sad to see Baros retire. He was a great player in his time. I still think he can do some more for the national team if he had a strike partner with him. He isn't a lone striker at this point in his career. I hope we give him a proper send off. Maybe call him up to the next friendly to give him one final game.
So do you guys think Bilek will stay on? Otherwise, I'll check back some before the Denmark game on Sept 8.
I agree that Baroš merits a send-off, although I can't really recall us doing that before (I know Nedved retired after 2006 and that was it). I hope he continues to have a good club career and maybe comes back to GL in a couple of seasons (even though it would most likely be to Banik).
For the moment, I think he definitely will. Expectations for this tournament were fairly modest, and we pretty much achieved them. He signed an extension pre-tournament, so the only chance he'd get fired was if we had crashed out in the first round. He has some goodwill now, but if qualifying doesn't start well he could be back on the hot-seat.
I am not thrilled with Bilek but he is a pretty decent manager. Look what he did with Pilar, Jiracek, Selassie and even Kadlec when he moved him to centerback. Then Bilek did continue to play an out of form Baros, play extremely attacking against Russia and he keeps playing Rezek. He isn't perfect but he got the job done. He is gonna have some great young talents for world cup qualifying such as Pilar, Perkhart, Darida, Necid, Kozak, Suchy, Gecov (Fulham fans are raving about him), Kadlec, and Kalas are some good young talents. Plus we had quite a few players in the prime in their careers and playing well. I think we will do even better in the World cup!
I was wondering what the verdict on Gecov was at Fulham, I knew he hadn't really broken into the lineup much yet, but its good to hear that they expect him to.
I guess one final note from Euro 2012: Reaching the quarterfinals jumped us up 9 spots (to 18) in the Fifa rankings... I know Fifa rankings are widely considered to be crap (example, we are ahead of Mexico , but behind Greece ), but they do determine seeding in tournament qualifying. This rank puts us back in the 2nd seed category. Hopefully we can hold if not improve on that between now and the Euro 2016 draw.
Okay, now one last thing, I saw this blog of a post tournament wrap up. While most of it is the same summary as most places (although I also like point #5, as I do feel that what Vrba has done at Plzeň should be a model for other clubs), they did make a very interesting point: I remember following the Portugal match people, even here over on the Euro 2012 sub-forum, saying "you guys looked good for about 30 minutes then it was like you just ran out of energy." Well the truth is, that was probably part of what happened. Fitness has been an issue for Gambrinus Liga players, not just for the national team, but it also played a role in Jiras falling out of favor this spring at Wolfsburg (hopefully with a full summer preparation that won't be the case). I've previously thought it was an issue of inadequate strength and conditioning practices at the club level, but that ridiculous winter break plays a role as well. Hopefully now that the league is enforcing stadium requirements that include an under soil heated pitch, they will move towards reducing the winter break to a more reasonable length. As for how to add more than 30 games to the schedule, the league would need to be redesigned, I pretty well outlined the options that have been brought up before, here (add playoff round , shrink league to 12 and go to double round robin , merge with Slovak league [although a somewhat in favor unsure] ).