Sports News

It’s mostly football in this week’s sports news: five Czech football clubs get ready for the next round of Europa League play-offs; Chelsea’s Petr Čech saves two spot-kicks in the Community Shield’s penalty shootout; Czech top division’s 3rd round brings underdogs to the top of the table; and the Czech national basketball team beats Hungary in a key relegation battle.

Five Czech clubs in Europa League play-offs

Photo: ČTK

Five Czech football clubs are getting ready for the 4th preliminary round of the Europa League. The Czech champion Slavia Prague, who were relegated from this year’s Champions League after an embarrassing home 1-1 draw against Moldova’s Tiraspol, will now face Crvena Zvezda Belgrade.

Another Czech club that was kicked out of the Champion League’s preliminaries is city rival Sparta Prague. After a promising first leg against Panathinaikos, they saw their hopes barred after a 3-0 defeat in the away second leg. In the Europa League play-offs, Sparta will face arguably the weakest opponents of all Czech clubs – Slovenia’s NK Maribor. Sparta’s captain Tomáš Řepka told Czech Radio that his team’s hopes are high for reaching Europa League’s group stage.

“I think that out of all the clubs we could have received, Maribor is the most passable, or at least I hope that it’s the most plausible, and I believe we’ll make it past.”

In Friday’s draw, Sigma Olomouc, for their part, received a more formidable opponent. After a spectacular 3rd preliminary round, in which the Moravian club kicked out Scotland’s Aberdeen 5-1 and 3-0 last week, Olomouc will now face Everton. Although bookmakers strongly favour the English side, Sigma Olomouc’s boss Jiří Kubíček says they are very happy about the draw:

“For us, it’s one of the top opponents, just like Real Madrid or Juventus because the first thing we heard from them was that they would like some 20,000 tickets for the game here. They probably did not realize our stadium seats 10,000, so it would be difficult to meet their demands.”

In the 4th preliminary round of the Europa League this week, Slovan Liberec will play Dinamo Bucharest and the last Czech club in the competition Teplice will face Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Rosický out of action, again

In more football news, Arsenal’s midfield Tomáš Rosický has sustained a new injury and will miss some six weeks of action. The Czech international, who came back this summer after an 18-month break due to a knee injury, suffered a strained hamstring at a training session last week. While Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger told the press the current injury was “not serious”, the Czech national side coach Ivan Hašek still hopes Rosický will be fit in time for an important World Cup qualifier against Slovakia in early September.

“I believe he won’t be out for long. I know from my own career that such injuries are difficult to avoid when you come back after such a long time. We’ll definitely miss Tomáš in the upcoming friendly against Belgium but I still hope there’s a chance of him playing against Slovakia.”

Čech saves two penalties in England’s Community Shield

Petr Čech, photo: ČTK

Another mainstay of the Czech national squad, Chelsea’s goalkeeper Petr Čech, seems to be in top form at the start of the new season. Sunday’s Community Shield at Wembley between Chelsea and Manchester United ended 2:2 in normal time, and in the following shoot-out, Čech saved kicks by Ryan Giggs and Patrice Evra, giving Chelsea under new manager Carlo Ancelotti a cause to celebrate.

Czech top division sees underdogs at the top

Photo: ČTK

Back home in the Czech Gambrinus Liga, the two favourites, title-defender Slavia and runner up Sparta, are not having the best of starts into the new season. In the third round that took place over the weekend, Sparta drew with Příbram 1:1, and has yet to see its first victory in the new season. Slavia, for their part, secured their first three points in a home win against Bohemians Prague. But it’s the Moravian clubs of Ostrava and Brno that top the league table after the first rounds. While Ostrava beat Plzeň 1:0 with a well-targeted strike by Zeher, Brno obtained a precious 1:0 away win against Liberec, who finished third last season, and has come to top the table for the time being.

Basketball: Czechs beat Hungarians in EuroBasket relegation

Photo: ČTK

And finally, in men’s basketball, the Czech Republic beat Hungary 71:65 in a Relegation Round game in Prague on Saturday, clinching their first victory in the four member group. Two bottom teams will be relegated to EuroBasket Division B, and the Czechs, having already lost to Estonia earlier this month, will have to defeat Ukraine on Tuesday to remain in the elite Eurobasket division this season.