2-0 Portugal at half. Again, we concede another goal before half, but are then awarded a penalty from a Ronaldo handball which Schick completely skies over the net after clipping the crossbar…
Elsewhere Switzerland lead Spain 1-0 at half. If both results hold, our match in St. Gallen becomes a must win.
Portugal 4-0 FT. It’s unbelievable how secure Silhavy’s job is. We needed a new manager yesterday, but we’re instead stuck with this dinosaur who continues to recycle tactics used for Euro 2020 qualifying.
Yeah, I didn't bother watching after I saw the call ups, which included a 35 year old with no recent national team experience that plays in Indonesia... weak position or not that is a real low point as by now with his decline there are about 20 better options playing domestically with at least a few matches a year against less farcical opposition. I think its time to say cheers to Silhavy for the Euro performance, but it is time to move on.
The U-21s qualified for the 2023 European championship today, didn't look very convincing, but hey at least they got through the playoff against Iceland.
Vaclik - Coufal, Kudela, Zima, Jemelka - Soucek, Kalvach - Cerny, Barak, Vlkanova - Schick Positive changes to the lineup and do especially like the formation change. Huge opportunity for Kalvach to prove himself at this level. I do hope this will be the last time we see Kudela playing for the national team, but for today, I can understand the decision to play him alongside a familiar partner in Zima. It’d be great if Jemelka can emerge as a viable back-up CB / LB going forward so that we can forget about Zeleny (the same but just older) and the likes of Havel and Mateju. I maintain that Silhavy should be fired if we don’t win today and are relegated to League B (and also miss out on Pot 1 for Euro qualifiers). Will never happen though.
We had the two best chances in the match up until conceding twice within a minute. What a collapse… 2-0 Switzerland. Just awful.
Schick pulls one back! Fantastic run and assist from Zima. Nice to finally score one right before half after making a habit of always conceding at that time.
Man we’re actually playing quite decent, but two bad moments cost us two goals and most likely a shot at winning this.
It’s a shame for that complete meltdown in a minute because we’ve hit both the post and crossbar and had a partial breakaway saved…
Vaclik appears to have injured his shoulder and is replaced by Stanek at the half. Kudela coming off for Havel as Jemelka shifts across to the centre. Much rather have put on Zeleny instead.
I hate supporting Czech. 2 missed penalties in 2 games and 2 posts in this match. We are losing, and likely will be relegated. So frustrating.
Penalty to Switzerland! And Soucek misses… An even worse attempt than Schick versus Portugal. We could easily be winning this game.
I can’t blame Silhavy for certain circumstances as seen today, but surely there’s a manager out there that will bring us better luck.
Could Barak have not taken that penalty? I know Schick doesn’t want to be the guy to miss penalties in two straight games, but Soucek is no elegant player.
3 posts and a missed penalty. Man we are unlucky. Not happy to be relegated considering we started the group with a win and draw, but hopefully league B will be more favorable for us. Knowing our luck though, we will get England.
Well, we got a shockingly easy qualifying group for the 2024 European Championship: Poland Czech Republic Albania Faroe Islands Moldova Top 2 qualify.... I still don't feel especially confident.
We have 2 friendlies against Faroe Islands and Turkey, Slavia and Plzen stated early on that they won't release players for it; they seem to have been joined by Sparta and Bayer Leverkusen. So we are left with something about like the makeshift Covid sides. I would honestly have rather we just sent an Olympics style team, basically youth players and a handful of semi-established players that could use the runout during the break (say Zima, Cerny, Kral)... instead we are running the few regulars that we have available ragged and for every younger player we bring 2 older journeymen players with no purpose or future for us.
What's the record for fastest debut hattrick? Mojimir Chytil has 2 goals in the first 20 minutes and this Faroe Islands team is really bad so expect that to increase. Chytil is one of the few younger inexperienced players brought in, but is slightly too old for the youth teams and too mediocre to be more than a reserve list player at the moment. And while I was typing this Chytil got a hattrick at 23 minutes.
I have so much to say about the incompetence of our FA and how done I am with both Silhavy and Fousek, but I’ll just save that for later. As for Wednesday, I’m assuming Faroe Islands were also missing some of their regulars as I’d have expected more of a challenge. Chytil is the obvious lone bright spot. All three goals were well-taken so good for him. He’s the same age as Kuchta was before he moved to Slavia and if he can emerge as a player of similar caliber, that’s another decent forward option going forward. Otherwise, this squad is pretty terrible and Silhavy’s logic behind some of his call ups is becoming fireable in itself. Honestly, given the current form and injuries of our players, we’d get embarrassed at this World Cup anyways.
Just two changes to the team from Wednesday with Mateju and Pekhart in for Navratil and Pekhart. Obviously Pekhart starting has nothing to do with him playing in Gaziantep (where today’s match is being played)… because he of all players deserves this opportunity despite being a washed up 33 year-old journeyman. I don’t want to live in a world where any of Tecl, Pekhart, or Dolezal are national team players in 2023.
I feel the Croatian national team exists to highlight our persistent under-performance. Every excuse made for our national team performance and player development (less people, less money, corruption) is even more an issue there and they are in their 6th World Cup and 3rd semi-final since 1998.
🇨🇿🆚🇵🇱🇲🇩 Kouč Jaroslav Šilhavý ukázal před kvalifikačními duely s Polskem a Moldavskem na těchto 𝟐𝟓 𝐣𝐦𝐞𝐧. pic.twitter.com/X3aCSasmky— Česká fotbalová reprezentace (@ceskarepre_cz) March 14, 2023 I needed a few days to process our most recent squad list as I couldn’t believe what I saw. Is this actually a Silhavy squad?? I’m genuinely impressed by these call ups and the apparent change in direction of building a team that’s aimed towards not just Euro 2024, but the 2026 World Cup. We do have a few notable injuries in Zima, Kalas, Sadilek, and most recently but to no surprise, Schick. The other injury concern is Coufal, but he remains in the team for now. Sure, Matej Jurasek and Martin Vitik are probably not ready for this level just yet, but it’s much more sensible to include them over some 30+ year old journeyman with no upside. Average age of this team is 25.8 which must make for the youngest squad we’ve had in a long time.