Captain promises viewers new game news at upcoming EMF Euro 2022

The captain of the Czech national team Stanislav Mařík gave Ruik an exclusive interview just before leaving for the final preparatory camp in Český Dub and answered a few questions about the upcoming European Championship (EMF Euro 2022 Slovakia). Most of all, we wanted to know how our national team is prepared and what and who we can look forward to when defending the title.

Stando, on Saturday the top European Small-Sided Football Championship EMF Euro 2022 Slovakia starts in Košice, Slovakia, with teams from 24 countries taking part and the Czech Republic defending its 2018 title from Kiev. What’s in store for our national team in the coming days?

Well, I’ll start gradually, now we have the final preparation, today we go to Cesky Dub, on Wednesday and Thursday there will be some two days of preparation, where the whole team will be already going to Košice and more or less it’s about even more bonding. We will definitely be fine-tuning some standard situations and the coaches will definitely have some information about the opponents ready.

There will definitely be some TE-TA (technical-tactical preparation) and we will do everything in the game to be as prepared as possible. On Friday morning we will be transferred to the main train station in Prague, where we will take the train and leave for Košice, where we should arrive sometime in the afternoon, check in at the hotel, get acclimatized and on Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. we will have our first game against France.

How are the boys currently prepared?

In terms of fitness and readiness, I believe that all the boys will be healthy and healthy enough to play to their full potential and I believe that all the boys are trained, whether from Super League or big football. Hopefully they will carry their current form over to the national team, we will do everything we can to be successful.

The last European Championship was played in 2018, do you have any idea who some of the well-known players from the opposing teams will be coming?

The opponents, as you say, there was a coronavirus, so we don’t really know exactly what team will come, but as for the French, for example, we met them in Tunisia at the World Cup, we beat them by quite a high margin, but it was certainly not, although it may have seemed so from the results, an easy match. I’m sure they have quality and it will be a tough game this time as well.

Then we have Moldova, who we don’t know much about, but as far as I remember from some European Championships, they were small and fast guys who played futsal, so it will be a tough game too.

Then we have Serbia, who we meet in every event we play. Now that I’ve seen the roster, they’ve got three, four, maybe even five of the same faces we’ve faced before, and it’s always heated with those guys. It’s about one or two goals, because they’re grown guys, so it’s a battle, but we’ve got to deal with it. But we’ve never lost to them and I believe we’re not going to start that.

What tactics are you preparing, although I know you’re not going to tell me anything specific.

As far as our tactics are concerned, we would definitely like to stay true to our style, that is, active play and impose our style of play on them in terms of some repression and pressing. Then the combination with the goalkeeper, we’ll also rely on the interplay of the guys because we’ve known each other there for a while, we’ve met each other.

But maybe even the guys from Brno play together, they’ll be together for sure, we have a strong representation from Prague as well, so I hope we’ll take advantage of those games and dominate those games.

What are the ambitions of the Czech national team?

It seems to me that we have it like this every championship, for us the goal is to play the maximum number of matches, that means to get among the last four. Our goal, of course, is to defend and win the gold medal. But I think as things get better and the opponents get better, any medal would just be an achievement, so we would like to play the maximum number of games and get a medal.

What can your fans and spectators look forward to?

I think I can promise on behalf of the whole team that we will give it our all and hopefully we will come out with the same strength and energy that we always have. People can look forward to fast, combination football with a lot of chances and that we certainly won’t be defending some skinny win, but we want to play up front and score a lot of goals.

Standa Bejda and Jirka Novak will definitely come up with some new interesting standards, so it will be interesting in that respect as well. We always come up with something new at every championship and I believe it will be the same this year.

What about the familiar faces, who’s coming?

I’ve seen the Serbia roster that I was talking about, there are definitely familiar faces that have appeared at championships. I’ve seen the Romanians, there are a lot of familiar faces there as well, so I think the guys from realizak will definitely have something ready and right now in Dubu we’ll break down the other teams.

What they will look like is of course a question, it depends on how who has maintained themselves during the coronavir etc. But we have to focus mainly on ourselves and believe that we can do it.

Czech national team in small football::

World Championships:: Participation – 3× (Gold – 1×, Silver – 0×, Bronze – 0×)
European Championship:: Participation – 9× (Gold – 1×, Silver – 2×, Bronze – 4×)