“I hope everyone stays healthy and we enjoy 2023. I would like to wish good health and success not only to the Czech footballers, but also to the national team to get off to a good start in qualifying for the EURO and make the fans happy,” said the historically best scorer in the Czech top flight, who is currently winning the regional championship in the south of Bohemia for Olešník.
Of course, he follows the Czech league closely. “I don’t see the front of the competition as very balanced, we Spartans still have a gap, even though the end of the autumn lured us a little,” reminds Lafata that coach Brian Priske’s team loses seven points from third place to leader Pilsen after the autumn part.
However, he has nine points from the last three duels before the winter break. “I hope that the form will last and be confirmed right from the beginning of spring. “Maybe Sparta will still shuffle their cards in the fight for the title and there won’t be a moment when they say we need to start again,” the 41-year-old marksman wishes.
Sparta is definitely not lazing around during the winter and has already introduced three foreign reinforcements. Midfielders Kaan Kairinen and Qazim Laci came to Letná, Dmitrije Kamenović will strengthen the defense. “For me, the players are unknown. I hope Sparta knows what it’s doing. She needed to strengthen and we’ll see if she hit the mark,” comments Lafata cautiously.
On New Year’s Eve, he went to the traditional international derby, which was played on artificial grass in Prague’s Eden. Sparta led 3:1, but Slavia managed to turn it around to 6:3. But Letenský did not give up and showed a fantastic turnaround to the final 7:6.
“We almost had a chance, but in the end we managed to pull it off with sheer force of will. I’m glad we turned the game around,” said Lafata, who was also voted the best player of his team. “Thank you to whoever chooses the award, but we definitely had more aspirants,” praised the rest of the team.
But at one point he was not laughing. At 6:4 for Slavia, he did not convert the penalty. “I rushed unnecessarily. We had a big loss, so I was probably too hasty. The last time I didn’t score in the derby was two years ago,” he recalled. But then he led the already mentioned turnaround with two goals.
