AN INTERVIEW
Although Slovak blood is circulating in their veins, Pilsen coach Adrián Guľ will not be read twice well by criticism from his compatriot and coaching colleague Roman Pivarník. The former pilot Viktorie himself, whose current West Bohemian leadership recalled from first place in the league table in the spring of 2017, evaluated the recent embarrassment of the Pilsen team in the fourth preliminary round of the European League in the Israeli Beer Sheva for eFootball and saw many shortcomings. What exactly was it, and how hard do he think Guľ will breathe now?
What did you say about the performance that Pilsen presented itself at the Beer Ševy field?
From my point of view, this match followed the recent downward trend. Of course, I’m watching Pilsen and I have a feeling that even though she managed the previous match in terms of results, it wasn’t very convincing from the game point of view. Miroslav Koubek said this quite accurately in the match studio that in the game of Pilsen there was almost no movement or start to defend the opponent. Everyone wanted to get a balloon in their feet and combine with it in peace. It follows that the team has a great hold of the ball, but when you look where the ball is held, it is only where the opponent allows it. That means about halfway through or just behind it, but there is no greater straightforwardness in the sixteen. And what I personally miss out there perhaps even more is the greater active repression after losing the ball. I personally placed a lot of emphasis on that in Pilsen, but now I don’t see much of it there. As well as the arrival of the rear rows, which is called residual defense. So that in case you lose the balloon, the player is in the fight in time. At least that didn’t happen much on the Beer Ševy field, which is why Pilsen players had such a problem with their opponent’s breaks.
Is the main problem in the current form of the team, or rather in the wrong player typology?
I think it’s a bit of a matter of both of these factors. Pilsen chooses football-capable players for the staff, but they must also have a very good physical pool so that they are sufficiently combat-oriented and not lazy to take a step. Not everyone is able to do all this. Some players are a little comfortable and prefer to keep their opponents at bay so that they don’t run away. But precisely because they were not in time for a fight, of course, they run away. It’s already up and running while you’re still standing … It was just seen on the Beer Ševy playground. If the home team hit their breaks at least once, it could easily have ended in debacle. It is punishable to let your opponents have so many chances. In addition, the local owner ended up in Beer Ševa, the players’ salaries were reached and most of the better ones left the team. There is only a torso of the cadre, which has been collecting master titles for several years in a row. Today, it’s actually just the average Israeli team.
Pilsen did not de facto create a clear chance for the whole match, it was practically the same in Alkmaar before. Is this the biggest problem that even though Viktoria has the ball in her possession, she is not able to come up with anything in those key matches?
Exactly. It’s too static. The players pass nicely to each other, but there is no acceleration. Some may say that Pilsen had a hard time when Beer Ševa scored the first goal and then pulled. Yes, but the home team would most likely play the whole match. Their style is based on honest defense and fast breaks. And you simply can’t play against such a team for sure, you have to come up with something riskier. Unfortunately, the game of Pilsen was too cumbersome for that. It’s about the fact that if you give twenty quick balls for defense per match, five will work out for you. But if you only put two in there, it’s very difficult.
You yourself have come to know the demands of the Pilsen environment first-hand. What must happen there after such an elimination?
The atmosphere there was never good, even when only the preparatory match was lost. In Pilsen, you simply have to win all the time. The key will be how the team can handle a tough duel on Sigma on Sunday. He can’t afford another unsuccessful duel in quick succession.
Goalkeeper Aleš Hruška seems to be the sad cup figure of the current Pilsen. Although he catches a lot of unloaded chances, his mistakes have also significantly affected the elimination with Antwerp, Alkmaar and now Beer Sheva. Would you sit him down to still be Victoria’s coach?
Hruška is an experienced goalkeeper who manages a lot of matches very well. In the really important ones, however, he often fails lately, which is especially painful in his position. Old Victoria could handle the really tense matches. The new one can’t do it very well and unfortunately this also applies to Hruška. He catches a lot of it, but almost every mistake he made was fatal for the team. But the truth is that Pilsen has no better person there right now.
Even worse than Hrušek, Guľ himself has to breathe now. Under what pressure will he now work in Pilsen?
I think under a huge. From my point of view, he did not manage three key matches this year, namely the cup semifinals in Sparta, then the Battle of the Champions League in Alkmaar and now Beer Shev. That’s just the way it is. It’s one thing to train players well, it’s another to turn it into success in matches. And I said in advance that working here for him will be something completely different than in Slovakia. There, almost every team will be eliminated at the first European hurdle and almost nothing is happening, because everyone is counting on it. But then it is something else in the Czech Republic. Especially when you train Slavia, Sparta or Pilsen. It is right to choose your path, but it is even more important to succeed on it. If I say it completely hard, the Pilsen coach would have flown immediately after such a match. I was even fired from the first place in the table, and Míra Koubek didn’t get a second chance either. The ball did, but he failed again. The question, of course, is whether Pilsen has any adequate compensation in place. If not, then it will continue on the same path, that is clear.
And how will that elimination affect her FORTUNA: LIZE results?
We will see. In Pilsen, however, you must be able to switch immediately to the next match. It never happened to me that we lost twice in a row. When we lost, we were able to catch up again in the upcoming match. But now there is a new team in Pilsen, so we’ll see how they manage. Coach Guľa, however, is definitely a positive type of coach who tries to transfer peace to the player. Now it’s more about them being able to help him in these difficult times.
.
