Bílek on his critics: The satisfaction was the amazing last year with Pilsen

Benidorm (from our newsletter) – “You know, I’m not going to be swayed by these critics anymore,” Bílek told Sport.cz in Benidorm, Spain, where the West Bohemians are training.

You took the national team to the quarter-finals of the European Championship, won the title with Pilsen, got them into the Champions League. Now you and Viktoria are autumn masters. But still your work is questioned by some people, they put a “dog’s head” on you. Don’t you regret it?

To tell you the truth, I don’t deal with this much, nor do I really read these opinions much. I know myself how we are. I have experienced so much in football that this is beyond me.

But the satisfaction of these achievements for you must be…

Last year with Pilsen was a great satisfaction. We have achieved tremendous success. We won the league, we advanced to the Champions League from three tough preliminary rounds, now we are leading the league. We had a lot of injuries and played a lot of games, but we still made it through the fall. This makes me happy. I don’t deal with negative talk at all.

There will still be those who will say that Pilsen plays unwatchable football.

Unwatchable… We are seven points ahead of Sparta, two points ahead of Slavia, these are the facts. Are we playing defensive football? After Sparta and Slavia, we scored the most goals last season, this season we have the most after Slavia. And that we have a game based on fair defending? Every team should have that.

Nevertheless, even while participating in the Champions League, you were criticized for not scoring a single point in the basic group.

We are happy that we could play such matches. These are huge experiences and lots of experiences. Playing for Barcelona or Bayern is a blast. It is not easy to win matches in such an atmosphere.

You never publicly criticize the players, you pay attention to the team concept. When there is failure, you take it upon yourself. Are you not harming yourself?

It’s true that I don’t need a lot of criticism after the match.

But some coaches do.

That’s okay, everyone is different. We will analyze the match and tell each other about the mistakes in the cabin. If someone disappoints me in a way that I have never experienced before, then of course I would criticize them. But the guys in Pilsen work well. If something doesn’t go well, there’s no reason for a lot of criticism to come. I don’t need to vent right away. It is not good to act on emotions after a match.

But then the media focuses on the coach, not the players, and you catch it.

We are in this together. When they don’t succeed, they play badly, it’s also my fault. Maybe I chose the wrong line-up, determined the wrong tactics. When they don’t work well, it’s also the coach’s business. I’ve always done it this way, I won’t change anything.

Honestly. Can the successes from last season be repeated? Last year, you unexpectedly overtook Slavia and Sparta, against whom Pilsen is a poor relative.

We realize that spring will be extremely difficult. We are two points ahead of Slavia, seven ahead of Sparta. We have a tough draw – we play Sparta, Slavia, Baník, Slovácko. Slavia and Sparta are strengthening in the winter, they will do their best to win the title. But we are strong, we believe in each other.

Sparta has again taken a foreign route, Pilsen is betting more on the Czech cabin. Which direction is correct?

This is always shown by the results. We also have quite a few foreign players. But I still think that the core of the cabin should be Czech. When the best individual comes, it does not mean that he will immediately fit into the team and start performing brilliantly.

Is the degree a goal or a dream for you?

We set some goal that we told each other. Let’s see how the beginning of spring will be for us. It will be very important that we get the results right away. We are first, so we certainly won’t say that we want to finish in third place. If we can, we will definitely try to win the league again.