Slavia 0 - 0 Leicester at halftime. Fairly fun and open first half from a neutral standpoint, but no really good chances to show for it by either team (though several half chances). Slavia's defense definitely were taking the risks you expect from a team that wasn't usually challenged early on, but have sort of backed off as they realize they are playing real competition.
In terms of performances, Sima and Kolar stand outs for Slavia so far. Bah going forward is good, but living dangerously in the process. Actually Hromoda off the bench has been solid too. On the flip side, Olayinka has been shockingly poor relative to recent form.
At halftime any final result seemed possible, but Slavia in complete control so far this half. Still missing the last ball.
FT 0-0 A one goal win for Slavia probably would have been a better reflection, but they just didn't quite find the moment. I hate watching English commentators in Europe, they don't bother doing any scouting and they complain endlessly about officiating while their teams commit foul after foul.
Simplified rating Sima, Zima, Bah, Kolar Average - Stanciu, Kudela, Hromoda, Boril (barely, first half wasn't great), Provod Olayinka, Kuchta (was more average in the 2nd half, but invisible the first) Holes exited fairly early and was also average. None of the other subs really changed the match much
The online fans are worse, there explanation for 3 yellow cards vs our 1 and we must be "diving cunts" that paid the refs not that we were bossing them for 60 minutes. My study abroad year in Prague made me sorta hate British people, I have to remind myself sometimes they are all low-rent bachelor partiers. I thought Provod was great actually, his corners were our best chances too. Olayinka is my favorite player of ours, but man he was bad today. This season's been weird, our team is exciting, but we are so above the league its hard to care to watch when its not Europe or maybe against Sparta.
Obnoxious stag-dos are a big part of why I generally advise people to only do a day or two in Prague. Maybe the pandemic will sort of knock that off long term. I seem to be an outlier in rating Provod average as many are rating him MOTM (for me that was probably Zima in the end). I probably was putting to much focus on the lack of a G/A considering his usual role. Slavia are above the league standard, especially with Sparta slightly down and Plzen in shambles. Still should try and keep an eye out, you have a lot of players that will be moving to bigger things soon.
This feels like a missed opportunity for Slavia more than anything else. I’d expect Leicester City to be much sharper in the return leg at home, so plenty of work still awaits. By no means a bad result though, and still in fairly good position. I think Provod deserved to be included amongst the better players, but MOTM seems like a stretch to me also. He did exceed my expectations overall though since I felt he was maybe playing centrally too soon in such a big game. The worst is when English commentators give insight into our national team. The automatic reference to our Golden generation while listing whichever player they can recall is so played out at this point.
Sparta despite missing several key players saw off Zlin with their most convincing performance so far under Vrba. The highly rated 17-year-old Adam Karabec got the first goal finishing off a textbook counter attack.
Brno again lost points on a VAR decision, atlhough in this case I think it was actually accurate to overturn the offside call on Sigma's goal. I still think we will stay up, but its demoralizing to have lost so many points to VAR decisions, and in a league known for corrupt decision making its feeding a lot of resentment from our club:
Plzen actually looked somewhat like Plzen beating Bohemians 3-1. They still have big weaknesses and one of those is Brabec who needs to be kept far away from the national team. With a large cushion in points and the return leg to Leicester this week Slavia is playing a largely reserve lineup today, again the fact that lineup includes Deli, Oscar, Lingr, Masopust and Traore is another sign that Slavia is a different level depth wise.
Teplice can afford to keep that preposterously oversized stadium in good condition, but are so bad at maintaining a pitch that it looks like its been plowed for the growing season. 1363527486068449282 is not a valid tweet id
Slavia ended up drawing Teplice yesterday on that Brendan Rodgers approved pitch... With their latest two draws since Vrba’s perfect record at Sparta started, I think the title race this year has the potential to be *much* closer than last season. Slavia currently have an eight point lead, but they have a tough league match against Slovacko next week coming off the return leg in Leicester, and should they advance to the next stage, I’m sure Trpisovsky would rest some key players in league play like we saw yesterday. With that said, I’m still not convinced Sparta can beat Slavia, which they’d almost certainly need to do in order to secure first (unless Slavia really slips up in the spring). That meeting won’t be until the middle of April though, so maybe Vrba and Sparta could pose a real threat by then, but at the moment I still see them dropping points to any of Plzen, Slovacko, and Jablonec.
I would say any hope of teams catching Slavia depends on them making a deep run in Europa league and resulting schedule fatigue. Also, for what ever reason Slavia have slipped up only in matches against weak teams and completely, so there seems to be a motivation component as well. Vrba may win over the Sparta fans yet if they keep playing like they did last week. Their defense still needs to tighten up though.
Yeah, Slavia are always well prepared and motivated in crucial league games (which is few and far for them), so never a good idea to bet against them. The only deficiency in their current squad would still be in the forward position though. If Kuchta were unavailable, they don’t really have anyone currently healthy to fill that void. I guess it’s not a huge issue when you have such dynamic, goalscoring wingers, but I wonder if they now regret releasing Musa on loan. Sparta seem to have more upside to be the most dominant team in the spring term. That is if the senior international players can start producing (some early signs that they’ve been revived under Vrba) and can obviously stay healthy or Covid free as they’ve literally just been placed under quarantine. Factor that in with an in form Karlsson and returning Hlozek, and suddenly they pose the same threat as they did pre-season in my opinion (on paper of course, this is Sparta after all). Definitely still concerns about lapses in concentration defensively, but they’ve at least solidified the fullback position with Hancko and Wiesner for now.
Hromoda did well last week but woulda put Deli in that spot personally. I'm going for the homer pick 1-1 with Sima putting us through on away goals.
The next 35 weren't much better. It felt like a match in slow motion as neither team looks very sharp. Sima had probably the best chance of the half on a defensive error but put it wide, Leicester have a few shots on goal but nothing with real danger.
I thought Sima brought it down clean enough to take a few touches, if he was going to shoot first time he should have gone for a chip.
The half tilted Slavia's way more toward the end as Leicester did just look out of ideas, but it was such a bad half I can't even single out a bright performer. Everyone is rated neutral.