What did Slavia show against Maccabi? African play with the ball almost cost them points, Stanciu missed

Slavia won Thursday’s Europa League match against Maccabi Haifa and jumped to second place in the table after a 1:0 win. What did its performance show heading into Sunday’s game against Pardubice?

Played stoppers

Before the start of the season, no one would have guessed that they would play similarly important matches, due to injuries to competitors and the departure of David Zima, Aiham Ousou and Taras Kacharaba have been starting twice a week without a break.

After a slower start, their performances have graduated, and Thursday was probably their best game. Excellent work in the air spiced up with a few defensive saves. Both clearly among the top three players of the encounter with the Israeli champion.

Ousou caught two shots on goal in the first half with two blocks (or in the first case it was a centre in front of an empty net), Kacharaba extinguished his teammates’ fouls after the change of sides. Especially at the end he stopped a fast break with an unprecedentedly accurate save.

Theoverconfidence of the Africans

The last minutes could have been played a bit more calmly. However, the left side almost turned the win into a division of points. The trio of Peter Olayinka, Ibrahim Traoré, Ubong Ekpai did not work at all.

For Olayinka, it wasn’t quite his game, and like the aforementioned, he was too selfish in the end.

But it can’t be compared to the performances of Traoré and Ekpai. One of the vice-captains did enter the match with a sympathetic solo, but then instead of playing into the open wing space, he twice opted for the individual route, and both times it resulted in Maccabi losing and being outnumbered.

We can defend Ekpai by saying that he really has zero experience at left back, but his tackling under pressure was on the level of a scrappy teenager.

Without Stancio, it’s hard to do it

Slavia’s published lineup was very offensive, without a classic defensive midfielder. However, Nicolae Stanciu was injured during the warm-up and was replaced by Daniel Samek.

The centre-back lacked Stanciu’s courage to fire from distance, both Petr Ševčík and Ondřej Lingr once negotiated a good position for a shot, instead they alibistically passed to the wing area. Of course, Ševčík will replace the Romanian with dribbling and ball handling, but when it comes to finishing, he is half-hearted.

Source:: SK Slavia Praha