February 17, 2021
Today saw the playing of a match originally scheduled for January 31st but was postponed due to an outbreak of Covid in the Zlin camp, although given the heavy snowfall in mountainous Northern Bohemia at the time it may not have been played anyway.
Liberec was in the Sudetenland region annexed by Germany in 1938, but returned to Czechoslavakia in 1945. It is approximately 25 kilometres from the current border with Germany and a similar distance from the Polish border. It is 115km north of the capital Prague and with a population of just over 100,000 people it is the 5th largest city in the Czech Republic.
Slovan Liberec are one of the most successful teams since the Czech football league was created in 1993, winning the league title on three occasions ( in 2001/02, 2005/06 & 2011/12 ) and regularly participating in European football. They eliminated Ipswich from the 2002/03 UEFA Cup and Udinese from the 2013/14 Europa League. AC Milan, Lyon and Celta Vigo have also been beaten by Slovan. However, last season was the first time they had qualified for the Europa League for four seasons, thanks to a fifth place finish and winning the qualifying play-off. Slovan won three matches to get to the Europa League group stages, overcoming Ritteriai in Estonia, FCSB in Romania and APOEL Nicosia at home. However, they could only manage third place in their group. Despite achieving the double over Gent, successive 5 goal drubbings at Red Star Belgrade and Hoffenheim were too much to overcome.
Slovan’s home ground is the smart all-seat 9,900 capacity Stadion u Nisy.
At the league’s winter break, Slovan Liberec were in 8th place, but just one point off 4th place. In their 5 games since the resumption they had taken 8 points from their 5 games, winning at Brno ( 0-3 ) and impressively at Viktoria Plzen ( 0-2 with Jakub Pesek scoring from 60 yards at the death after Plzen’s keeper had come up for a corner ), drawing at home to Bohemians ( 0-0 ) and losing at Banik Ostrava ( 0-1 ). Last time out they could only manage a disappointing 0-0 draw with rapidly improving Ceske Budejovice in which there was only one shot on target in the whole match ! They had moved up to 5th in the table though, but trailed 4th placed Slovacko by 5 points. Slovan possessed a commendable 4-4-1 home record, with only local rivals FK Jablonec leaving with all three points.
31 year old Michael Rubusic ( 4 caps ) went into today’s game as Slovan’s leading league scorer with 7 goals, having come off the bench in 7 of his 17 appearances.
Keeper Filip Nguyen was in the process of gaining Vietnamese citizenship until called up to the Czech squad for the match against Scotland. Unfortunately for him, the Covid outbreak within the Czech squad meant the selected players had to be replaced, and he is yet make his international debut. Winger Jakub Pesek won his only cap as part of that replacement squad, and scored the goal that gave the Czechs an unlikely lead before unluckily losing 1-2 to the Scots.
Right wing-back Martin Koscelnik has one cap for Slovakia and midfielder Kamso Mara has two caps for Guinea. Young forward Imad Rondic comes from Bosnia and Slovan have two players on loan from Slavia Prague, namely defenders Jakub Jugas and Ondrej Karafiat. Attacking midfielder Jhon Masquera is Colombian but was signed from fellow Czech side Bohemians in the summer. He started the day with 6 league goals for the season.
21 year old PSV Eindhoven midfielder Michal Sadilek has been loaned to Slovan for the season, having previously made 27 appearances for the Dutch club.
Zlin is situated in Moravia, 300km south-east of the Prague with a population of 75,000. The city is closely associated with Bata, the footwear company, and so the football team are known as the Shoe-makers or The Cobblers. ( As an aside, a few years ago I was interviewed for a job with Bata with the prospect of relocating to Zlin, but the opportunity fell through. Otherwise I could have been a season ticket holder…….. ).
Zlin is also home to Zlin Aviation, respected manufacturers of gliders, crop-sprayers and acrobatic aircraft. Sponsors Fastav are one of the major shopping centre developers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Fastav Zlin returned to the top division of the Czech Rep in 2015/16 and have a best placed finish of 6th. This gave them their only season in the Europa League where they finished bottom in a group with Lokomotiv Moscow, FC Copenhagen and Sheriff Tiraspol with just two draws and just one goal scored. Last season they finished fourth from bottom in 13th place.
Zlin were in 11th place at the winter break but had since dropped to 13th although had two games in hand due to their enforced Covid break. They had played one match since their return to full health, drawing 0-0 at lowly Brno where they were saved by VAR mysteriously ruling out a Brno goal in the 88th minute for no obvious reason I could see.
Zlin’s three other games since the resumption had yielded two draws and a 2-6 hammering at home to runaway leaders Slavia Prague. In all, they were on a run of 8 games without a win, taking just 4 points in the process. Despite this, they were still 7 points clear of the relegation spots. Zlin’s away record was a solid 3-3-3, with wins at Mlada Boleslav, Ceske Budejovice and Karvina.
Veteran striker Tomas Poznar with 7 goals was their leading goal scorer before today, and he was awarded the League’s player of the month for November. He is also the record holder for the most goals scored for Zlin in the highest level of Czech football. He won his only cap last October in the 0-1 defeat against Scotland at Hampden Park, ie as part of the “A” squad.
Attacking midfielder Roman Potocny, who won his only cap as part of the C squad against Scotland, recently arrived on loan from Banik Ostrava. Similarly, ex Zlin midfielder Dominik Janosek also arrived on loan, but from Viktoria Plzen. Both made their debuts last week in Brno.
Keeper Stanislav Dostal has been with the club since 2008 and is approaching 200 league appearances for Zlin whilst 36 year old defender Vaclav Prochazka won 13 caps over his career.
There are three Slovaks in the Zlin squad, midfielders Marek Hlinka, ex Dundee United keeper Matej Rakovan and defender Robert Matejov. Midfielder Cheick Condo comes from Guinea and forward Lamin Jawo is Gambian.
23 year old French midfielder Youba Drame has impressed this season having arrived from Czech Second Division side Usti nad Labem for a reported 100k Euros, and is expected to move onto a bigger club in the summer. However, he started on the bench today
The journey for Zlin today was a 400km trek, or approximately 4 hours by road, and the last time they made the trip to Liberec they lost 0-5.
The 2pm kick-off local time was determined to avoid the game being played in the minus temperatures expected for later in the day, with a balmy 2 degrees forecasted for the early afternoon. Due to the Covid pandemic, all matches in the Fortuna liga so far have been played behind closed doors.
Bet365, who were streaming the match live, had Slovan as 4/7 favourites, with Zlin at 19/4. The draw was at 3/1
Slovan made two changes from their draw with Ceske Budejovice, with Mosquera returning after suspension in place of Rondic and Slovak midfielder Michal Fasko replaced Michal Fukala for his full debut, no doubt to the relief of the commentators…….Sadilek returned to take a place on the bench alongside Greek defender Marios Purzitdis
Zlin also made two changes from last week, with Antonin Fantis replacing Martin Cedidla at right-back, and Hlinka coming in for Jakub Janetzky.
Slovan wore their usual all Blue with white socks so from a distance looked a bit like Chelsea. Zlin were in their change kit of white shirts and black shorts rather than their normal yellow shirts and blue shorts. Unusually, the officials were in black, but for some reason were wearing pink socks.
The game got off to a quite start, with very little action in the first 10 minutes, although Slovan’s Mara managed to get the first yellow card of the match in the 9th minute after a clumsy aerial challenge. The pitch looked rutted on one side, and even in the early stages was starting to cut-up, perhaps not unsurprisingly as snow was clearly visible on the seats in the uncovered stand.
The first chance arrived in the 12th minute for Slovan. Mosquera charged down an attempted ball down the touch-line by Fantis and got to the by-line to cross to Rabusic. His first touch was a little heavy, enabling the Zlin keeper and a sliding defender to block his left footed shot from 8 yards.
Three minutes later Jawo became the first Zlin player to incur the wrath of the referee, but the yellow card appeared to be harsh as it looked to be more of an accidental collision.
In the 17th minute Slovan keeper Nguyen had his first piece of work to perform but Poznar’s left-footed shot from outside the area was weak and easily saved.
Rabusic threatened again in the 19th minute, with Mosquera again the provider from the left, but his diving near-post header went just wide of the post. Zlin’s response was almost immediate, with Conde’s snap piledriver from 20 yards surprising the motionless Nguyen, but unfortunately for Zlin the ball went inches wide.
Zlin thought they had taken the lead in the 22nd minute, Janosek’s incisive pass put Poznar clear, and he calmly finished past the advancing Nguyen. However, the raised flag from the linesman for offside meant the game remained scoreless.
Zlin continue to look the side most likely to score and in the 30th minute Janosek’s intelligent ball inside the left-back put Fantis in space but no attacker was on-hand to finish-off his square ball across the face of the goalmouth.
Mara continued to be a destructive presence in the Slovan midfield, and was perhaps a little fortunate to avoid a second yellow card for a foul on Conde.
There was no more significant action in the rest of the half, so it was 0-0 at half-time. Slovan had shown plenty of endeavour but apart from the occasional flash from Mosquera, rarely showed the guile to breakdown Zlin’s organised defence. For Zlin, Conde and Janosek were having good games in midfield.
The half-time music in the ground included Lynyrd Skynryd’s Sweet Home Alabama which was a pleasant surprise.
Slovan made one change at half-time, with Sadilek replacing Mara, perhaps fearful of the Guinean midfielder being sent-off, and the PSV loanee made a quick impact by getting a yellow card in the 52nd minute !
Slovan though started the second half much stronger. After just 40 seconds Rabusic worked a chance to release Karafiat inside the area, but the shot was blocked. 5 minutes later Dostal had to be alert to come out of his area to clear a long ball before Rabusic could get to it.
Zlin rarely looked dangerous as Slovan gradually racked up the pressure, although Nguyen also had to react quickly to make a diving header outside of his area for a throw-in. However, in his haste to get up and race back to his goal, he hurt his leg and collapsed in agony. The keeper managed to carry on for 5 minutes but he couldn’t continue and was replaced by the unfortunately named Knobloch.
Slovan immediately replaced Fasko after he collected a booking, and with Rodnic coming on as his replacement, Slovan changed their formation, with Mosquera moving to the right. They were rewarded in the 69th minute when the Colombian’s teasing left-footed in-swinging cross from the right touchline was met from Rodnic just outside the 6 yard box. His header gave Dostal no chance.
Zlin struggled to fashion a response, and the game became stop-start, with too much of the referee’s whistle, plenty of fouls and the yellow cards continued to mount up. There were 9 in total in the match.
Zlin were given a lifeline 8 minutes from time when they appealed strongly for something when a corner was cleared. There didn’t appear to be anything obvious but eventually VAR intervened and the referee went to the pitch-side monitor. After three minutes, it was decided that there had been the slightest contact with Mosquera’s arm so a penalty was awarded. And of course, as a penalty had been given, Mosquera was shown a yellow card !
Poznar stepped up to take the kick, but his blasted effort smacked against the underside of the bar and bounced out to be cleared to safety. Perhaps there was some justice to this ?
Slovan ran down the clock and the game fizzled out amidst a number of substitutions. There was one last piece of goal-mouth action, with Dostal bravely making a save at the feet of Mosquera to grab a loose ball after it had rebounded off a defender. This could have been a handball but there was no VAR check. In any case the final whistle came very soon after.
Overall, it was a very even match, with Slovan the better side in the second half without showing too much of a cutting edge. Zlin will feel they deserved a draw though after a decent spell in the first half, but failed to take the opportunity from the penalty spot.
Slovan Liberc : Nguyen ( Knobloch ) – Koscelnik, Jugas Chalus, Mikula –, Karafiat ( Purzitdis ), Fasko ( Rodnic ), Mara ( Sadilek )– Pesek ( Sulc ), Rabusic, Mosquera
Zlin : Dostal – Fantis, Buchta, Simersky, Prochazka – Hlinka ( Pedrito ), Janosek ( Matejov ), Conde – Potocny ( Drame ), Poznar, Jawo ( Janetzky ),
Highlights :
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