I like their odds. Lisbon was one of the "weaker" teams to draw, so Plzen got a bit lucky there. Only really Salzburg, and maybe Dynamo Kiev are worse than Lisbon.
Plzen finally lost a league match, to Jihlava of all teams. Jihlava seem to be having a bit of surprise turnaround under their new manager, they were in last place during the winter break but have now defeated Slavia and Plzen to start the spring. Although, they are still in the relegation zone.
Plzen were eliminated from Europa League despite a strong effort in the 2nd leg, ultimately succumbing 2-3(agg) to an ET goal in the 105th minute.
Plzen held on to win the league despite a much less successful 2nd half of the season. They will qualify directly to the Champions League group stages next year. Slavia are almost assured to finish 2nd place, they will enter the 3rd qualifying round for Champions League, but there are only 2 league path qualifying spots for CL next season so it's highly unlikely they have any chance of making it. And Brno is being relegated, so for the 2nd time in a few years the 2nd largest city won't be in the league.
There are serious rumblings that Slavia are in advanced talks to to sign Trezeguet - the young Egyptian one, and not the retired French one (although that would almost make more sense). I realize there is no lack of money now with the Chinese ownership group, but I still can't believe they'd sign a player that has been linked to much bigger clubs/leagues unless he has a terrible agent. Would be nothing short of a coup if they pulled that off.
Chinese ownership has been really shaky the last year. The club I follow has a chinese owner and we've run out of money completely. The owner has resulted to taking loans to pay the clubs. Birmingham city also owned by chinese owners is under a transfer embargo because last season they almost went into administration. AC milan is also having trouble with their owners and have been banned from the champions league.
Yeah, to be honest Slavia's ownership is perhaps a bit more stable short tern because they are linked to some much larger business and political dealings between our countries. Their founder was named an official (though mostly ceremonial) economic adviser in our government, and they have a lot of political connections and imagine some leniency with regard to credit/government support. It's been very funny, as someone just barely old enough to remember 1990s Slavia as the people's resistance club reclaiming some glory after decades of communist oppression, to watch them become the most fiscally irresponsible club and cynical cash grab in Czech football... twice. They imploded in 2010 because of the debt (of and toward) their former English ownership, and I imagine they will again when CEFC loses their political clout either here or in China (which I believe may already be happening). I won't go into my personal views of contemporary Czech politics, but their fortunes are at least partly tied to some particular people including a mercurial 70-something alcoholic that chain-smokes. In the meantime though, they definitely have the most willing to spend ownership in the league. So, they might as well try and get while the getting is good in terms of results.
Just remembered that league play starts this weekend. It's hard to imagine that the top 3 won't be Plzen, Slavia, and Sparta, but then that was the prediction the last and Sparta came in behind Olomouc and Jablonec. This is the first year with that that new structure with Championship, Europa League, and Relegation groups after the regular season.
The league starts far too early. I am going to be in prague early spring, so I am hoping to catch a Sparta match.
Yeah, I've not really looked into how the league schedule works out on the calendar now exactly. They've greatly increased the number of matches each team plays with the mini-leagues after the main season (one of the good things about this reformat).
First European fixture for a Czech team is now set. Sparta will play Serbian side Spartak Subotica in the 2nd round of Europa League qualifying. First leg is next Thursday. If they take this seriously it should be an easy advancement. Sigma Olomouc and Slavia will enter into the 3rd qualification phases for Europa League and Champions League respectively. Plzen is already in Champions League group stage and Jablonec is in the Europa league group stage.
Season starts today as Plzen will travel to face Dukla. I feel like if they were looking for a primetime Friday launch match they should have either made it Plazen vs a bigger Prague club or had Plzen host. Dukla are not good. Uninformed predictions: Top 6 (Champions Group): Plzen, Slavia, Sparta, Jablonec, Sigma Olomouc, and Banik Ostrava 7-10 (Europa League): Mlada Boleslav, Bohemians, Zlin and Liberec The Relegation group: Teplice, Slovacko, Karvina, Dukla, Opava and Pribram I think Banik had a quietly good transfer window getting Prochazka and Holzer. I believe Plzen are vulnerable because they still rely a bit too much on some core players that are getting old and while they brought in some younger players this summer most are probably squad rotation at the moment. I still predict they will be on top at the end of the regular season.
Zlin came back from 2 down in just over 20 minutes to beat Mlada Boleslav. All the results so far are about as expected. Also with this early season start, from the looks of it a lot of teams that could have used two more weeks of preseason honestly. Just turned on Sparta - Opava, and saw Pavel Zavidil is still playing and starting for Opava, they even mentioned how he is 40. Was my favorite Brno player of recent years so kind of glad to see. That said it's been all one way traffic for Sparta's favor as expected.
Having seen at least part of each of the top 3's matches, I have to say Slavia look best this week. Great atmosphere in Olomouc, but unfortunately the home team is taking a beating right now (lot of traveling Slavia support though too).
Nice advert for the domestic game with good atmosphere, TV production and quality of play. Slavia looked good winning 0-3, best performance of the weekend among the big 3.
Slavia's road through Champions League qualifying will begin against Dynamo Kiev. Dynamo were the 2nd highest seeded team on the league path by coefficient (after Benfica), but I actually would say that was a not too bad draw as this Dynamo side doesn't look as strong as in years passed. First leg is at the Eden Stadion 7 August. Return trip to Ukraine the following week.
Europa League 3rd Round Draws Sparta if they advance past Subotica will play the Danish side Brondby. Not an easy path, but nothing unreasonable and they should still be favored to make it at least to the playoff round. Sigma Olomouc will play the winner of Kairat (Kazakh side) or AZ. I imagine AZ will be the opponent and I wouldn't expect Sigma to be good enough to advance. A very successful year would have 2 CL group stage teams and 2 EL Group Stage teams; more realistic but still successful would be 1 CL and 3 EL. We are guaranteed at least 1 CL and 2 EL group stage spots, so even worst case scenario is something that was considered a good year a few seasons ago.
Sparta Prague should be going through. I really would like to see Czech football on the european stage again. We really have been poor in europe as a whole for a while now. I know Slavia did okay last season, but they had a decent chance at going far, but ruined it.
I don't think in the modern landscape a Czech team can do much in Champions League, the budgets just aren't there currently despite some big improvements. We've been able to build our coefficient up to the 11-13 range over the last 6 years (before that we used to be like 20th ranked league in coefficient) with Europa League as we've had teams reach the final 16 in 4 of the last 5 editions (Plzen x3 and Sparta once). What we really need is for more than one team to do well in the same season instead of just one club (usually Plzen recently) making a good run. That is what would help bring in the money/league prestige. I don't expect much from Zlin or Olomouc honestly, although Zlin will at least get 6 matches and soe
I meant Jablonec not Zlin that will be in the EL group stage and get 6 matches. Actually I'm watching Jablonec now against Banik. Another decent opening day crowd, but poor officiating so far and otherwise not too much to the match.
First full round of matches is done: Dukla 1 Prague - Plzen 3 Příbram 1-1 Teplice Slovan Liberec 1-0 Karviná Sparta Prague 2-0 Opava Zlín 3-2 Mladá Boleslav Slavia Prague 3 - Olomouc 0 Bohemians 1905 2- Slovacko 1 Banik Ostrava 1 - Jablonec 0 No major surprises, although Ostrava could be considered a minor one. The average attendance for week 1 was about 6600, which is fairly good for Czech league. It's actually 1000 higher than last years season average (which was the highest since 1999/2000) and this was despite Plzen and Slavia (who both average over 10,000/match) being on the road. Good crowds in Olomouc and Ostrava helped.