Judging by a Google Translate-assisted perusal of the media in the Czech Republic on Thursday afternoon, they’re not entirely happy with their national football team this weather.
A World Cup qualifying defeat away to the Faroe Islands last month, followed by a mere 1-0 triumph at home to San Marino in a friendly, in front of just 3,721 disgruntled souls, resulted in a fair heap of gloom descending. Even Monday’s 6-0 win over Gibraltar didn’t lift it, the failure to add to their tally in the last 40 minutes of the game leaving Czech supporters “close to tears”.
That was according to Prague-based newspaper Blesk which told us that said supporters turned to humour to “cure themselves” after watching these less than inspiring performances.
One suggested that after taking on San Marino and Gibraltar, they should line up a game against the Vatican. Blesk had its doubts. “God forbid that the Czechs embarrass the Pope’s sheep,” they said. (Nope, no clue either).
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Czech fans, they concluded, “are simply laughing beasts”, although what they didn’t find so funny was the team’s failure to applaud them at the end of the Gibraltar game in Olomouc. The upshot is that Tomáš Souček has been stripped of the captaincy, despite the West Ham man later apologising.
And interim coach Jaroslav Köstl, who replaced the sacked Ivan Hašek after that Faroes defeat, could be making an exit soon too even though “he delivered two mandatory wins against the dwarves” of San Marino and Gibraltar.
“I don’t want it to sound like I don’t think I’m up to it,” he said this week, “but I feel that there is a demand for a foreign or certainly a more experienced coach. And I have no problem with that.” What is a problem is finding the funds, which are in short supply, to hire such a man.
So, that’s the shape of Czech footballing things. Did drawing the Republic of Ireland for their World Cup qualifying play-off cheer them up? Not really. This, said the Dennik paper, is a “strong” and “dangerous” Ireland side that has created “euphoria in the island nation” after the win in Budapest.
“Ireland is a very unpleasant and tenacious opponent,” they quoted Lukáš Provod as saying, although we’ll give the winger the benefit of the doubt on the ‘unpleasant’ bit and blame Google. “But I believe that our big advantage will be the home environment, we will manage the match and thus get closer to our dream which is to advance to the World Cup.”
Their biggest concern? “Troye Parrotta”, that translation making the young fella sound like a member of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup team. And you’d take that. “If we don’t screw over Parrott in the first minutes, then we’re in deep s**t,” said a man called Viktor in response to the Czech FA’s announcement of the draw on social media.
You’d sense a hint of apathy, though. The playoff draw wasn’t even the leading sports story on Blesk for a good chunk of the day, that was a piece on Formula One driver Lando Norris’s Portuguese girlfriend. “She doesn’t fly around the house with a duster, but she looks like an angel, so you could forgive her anything!” Even the Pope’s sheep blushed.
