So I am not exactly filled with confidence after these friendlies. I think Kral and Boril have been mediocre to poor. We need our midfield to step up if we want to have a respectable tournament.
My top three would be Masopust, Celustka, and probably Schick. I also thought Kalas and Soucek were fairly solid. My three worst were Boril, Kral, and Jankto.
If we had another friendly I would've definitely wanted Holes to start in Kral's place. As much as our CBs are maligned (although today I think Kalas/Celustka worked... okay), Kral has been letting way to many simple passes through. Jankto's finishing, yes, but in my opinion he is our most creative starting midfielder and the fact he got himself 2 easy chances to ******** up still showed that.
One thing I don't understand one bit, and could backfire easily:Coufal - 180 mins in friendlies (+ 3811 mins for clubs)Bořil - 180 mins in friendlies (+ 3585 mins for club)xKadeřábek - 0 min in friendlies (1740 mins for club)Matějů - 0 min in friendlies (2228 mins for club)— Czech Football 🇨🇿 (@czechfooty) June 8, 2021 This is a very good point and can see it reflecting in their recent performances.
Yeah, the midfield 3 isn't working and, unfortunately, Barak completely failed his auditions to take a spot that might balance it. It really comes down to our first match, if we don't beat Scotland then these are just prep friendlies for the next round of qualifying.
Kaderabek should be getting minutes in general. I understand Coufal has taken the starting spot, but he is still a veteran presence that has more attacking technical ability than our other fullbacks. Mateju should have gotten minutes in these friendlies, because Boril looks tired and we don't have many left-sided options.
For sure, but based on his caliber and position in the team, you’d expect better. Same can be said for Kral. I’d say Barak was definitely worse, but of those we predict to start next week, those three must simply be better.
Have to wonder if knowing every single West Ham fan is now watching him out there is getting to Kral’s head.
I know they had a surprisingly good year, but I don't think being linked to West Ham has ever gotten in someones head.
LOOL I’d certainly hope not, but Kral obviously knows what’s going on. I swear in every picture of late, he’s with Soucek and Coufal and is probably just teasing them at this point.
Čelůstka shodil culík a forma je rázem zpět. Dnes mi připomněl staré dobrý podzimní výkony. Hlavně na ty vlasy už nesahat! #acsparta— Alex DeLarge (@PatrikChramosta) June 8, 2021 Conversely, I think Jankto's dye may have seeped into the part of his brain that controls finishing impulse.
Same. Your stock has fallen for me after these friendlies. I was close to tip you to get 2nd in Group D. Croatia will underperform in a way in my eyes. Now I lean actually towards Scotland grabbing 2nd place.
I think Silhavy’s conservatism provided stability following a dysfunctional Jarolim era, but I do think we need a more progressive manager going forward that can adapt to our current top players and integrate younger ones into that core. We know the Soucek - Kral - Darida midfield is redundant. We know Masopust is not of international quality (except today). We know our wingers will switch positions in the first half by default. And we only know how to play in a 4-2-3-1 formation. It’s not like he hasn’t had enough time to realize this (or maybe he doesn’t and that is very concerning) and adjust accordingly. He’s been in charge for 2.5 years now with one full qualifying cycle and an incoming major tournament to his name. I’d rather we freshen things up after the Euros even if already in the midst of a Covid induced overlapping cycle (a risk worth taking in my opinion) before his effectiveness really fades and we inevitably stagnate.
We were impetous today. I don't know why. We came out trying to take the game to you. Something very unusual for us against higer caliber opposition. Against Wales we sat back and we were rock-solid at the back. Not today. Our more expansive approach haunted us. We allowed you way too many chances. Only your 2nd goal was very well played out. First goal was poor defending from our part. 3rd goal from a dead ball situation. I found your team much stronger against Belgium and Wales to be honest.
We tend to look pretty bad against worse teams just because we are not a very dynamic attacking side, but we still get the wins. Italy was honestly a one-off at least in terms of recent results. We've managed to look competitive against Germany and Belgium. But what really scares me is our record against Scotland sucks. We lost to them twice in the nations league. Our first loss doesn't really count imo since that was essentially our C team due to covid, but it's still worrying that scotland has our number.
I almost think we match up better against Croatia than we do Scotland (or any similar [British] team for that matter). We’ve struggled with breaking down resolute defences in the past, but my real concern now is that Scotland will selectively press our centre backs / central midfielders in possession and create turnovers. We’ve never proven to be a good possession team under Silhavy, or least dominate that statistic even against weaker opposition.
Having thought about it, I’d probably start Holes alongside Soucek and then decide between Kral / Darida / Barak based on form or match ups. I think playing basically three box-to-box midfielders who realize they’re defensive roles are interchangeable is actually leading to nobody taking full responsibility. I’d rather have a designated holding midfielder in Holes that will assume those defensive duties, much like Hubschman did for us at Euro 2012. This should allow for Barak to be more effective in our set up and let Soucek play more similarly to his West Ham role. That was the midfield that started with Belgium after all…
I made up my mind. Sorry guys but I see the Czech Republic finishing bottom with only one point. I have you drawing with Scotland on matchday 1. Here is what I think the table will look like 1) England 7 2) Scotland 4 3) Croatia 4 4) Czech Republic 1 Up until the friendlies I had you in 2nd. However your underwhelming friendlies caused doubts. You'll miss also Kudela and Provod. I think your time will come in World Cup qualfying.
I might eat my words here, but I don't think we finish lower than 2nd. Scotland looked hopeless against us, and were truly lucky to beat us in Glasgow. Croatia will be the most iffy game for me, but I think their poor backline and forward options will see us through that one. England we will likely lose, but if we can shut down england's wings, we can knick a draw.
I’m definitely not overly optimistic after those warm up outings, but still have to realize these were just friendlies in the end. I personally don’t see Scotland finishing above us without beating us. I don’t think they will beat either one of England or Croatia. I’d estimate our placement percentages as follows: 1) 0% 2) 25% 3) 50% 4) 25% We have zero chance of winning the group, and not just from a talent standpoint, but our lack of draws (only one since June 2017 against Belgium this year) doesn’t suggest we’d be able to scrap a first place finish. We either win or we lose. That being said, when I compare our team now to the one at Euro 2016, we’re undoubtedly better and have a few dynamic players (Soucek, Schick, Jankto) that can determine results for us, so winning even just one game is entirely feasible in my opinion and should be the expectation. The unfortunate part of this tournament is how potentially impactful factors outside of the actual playing field may become. In our case specifically, we play two opponents with home advantage and recently had to cancel our base camp in Scotland due to their Covid regulations. Between select teams having home advantage, the risk of contracting and spreading Covid, and the increased travel for certain nations (and fans), this is just not the year to be introducing a new format of having host countries spread throughout Europe.
Who knows? Maybe in two weeks of time I'll be sitting here regretting to have put too much of weight into friendlies. I think 4 points are your cealing in this group. You can easily obtain them if your performance is like in March.
England are dodgy in tournaments and their team really isn't as great as people are making them out to be. They definitely have talented players in that team, but they also have quite a few players who are just okay. England have actually struggled for their "quality" in major tournaments over the last decade with the 2018 world cup being the exception. They also had arguably the easiest run I have ever seen to a final in 2018 and still screwed it up. Now I wish we had their level of talent, but basically in a major tournament, you never know what can happen. We also really screwed up the last euros. We have Croatia, Turkey, and Spain. Another group where we could/should have finished 2nd or 3rd but we finished last.
I've been expecting us to finish 3rd since the group was announced, but could easily see us as being 2nd or 4th. I think people are overestimating Croatia's decline in form as a decline in ability. They are definitely passed the peak of the 2016-18 and they already lost Rakitic from their most recent golden era, but there is still a fair amount of talent in that lineup compared to Scotland.
Looking back, I don’t think we ever really had a chance of advancing from that group. Maybe we could of beat Turkey, but Spain and Croatia were still levels ahead of us. We were old, slow, and quite frankly one of the worst teams at that tournament. Our experienced core was well past their primes and we had no real young talent in that squad. Vrba already knew ahead of the tournament he’d be returning to club football and evidently didn’t care about building for the future.