Absent-mindedness or entitlement? The football public is not interested in national team friendlies

The Czech football public approached the friendly match with Wales very clearly. The overwhelming majority of people discussing the national team friendlies on social media are very negative. Is this sad? Or is it justified? I suppose it depends on the individual perspective.

Either way, it is a bit sad to find that if a friendly match with scattered line-ups was played on home soil, the big question is what kind of attendance would come and what kind of spectators would create a backdrop.

Naturally, we probably all suspect the answer. One cannot ignore the fact that the friendlies are essentially a no-brainer, but it is after all a national team game which we should naturally support in good times and bad.

Plus, the last few years have been more or less good times. The Czech football fan, maybe even the Czech fan in general, is but an almost insatiable creature and almost always finds reasons to be dissatisfied.

After the 0:1 loss to the Swedes, there were plenty of vocal critics of coach Jaroslav Šilhavy, but there were also plenty of judgmental fans who appreciated his long-term work. Moreover, Šilhavý had a significantly weakened squad for the crucial barrage match.

The next generation of players looks very promising for Czech football, but whether the national team will find a better coaching staff than we have had so far is a very complicated question.

In the end we played Wales 1:1. Some fans are wondering about the line-up and that some players didn’t even watch the game, see Ladislav Krejci for example. On the other hand, other fans complain that Lukáš Masopust or goalkeeper Jindřich Staněk got injured.

Fans’ reaction to the friendly against Wales

“Another qualification in a hurry. Poland cleverly beat Sweden 2: 0 in front of 55 thousand spectators. They took it as a game of 10 years, which will decide the next years of football in Poland. Well, they’re taking it differently than us and I wish them well. Where would we have given 55 thousand if they had come at all.”

“Weeks of an injured player, whom Slavia rationed his minutes slowly so as to pass the injury recovery , sends him to the repre, where Šilhavy wears him out in a few days in meaningless crap. And we are back to a minimum of -1 player for a month.”

Source: CT Sport, Issue 34, Tomas Jiranek, Stepan Skorpil