How Slavia fooled Fenerbahce? We deliberately told the media that we would play 3-5-2, says Köstl

On Thursday, Slavia won 3:2 against Fenerbahce Istanbul in the European Conference League playoffs. The match was played with two strikers at the right-back position, Ivan Schranz played the full ninety minutes at right-back.

Slavia did not go to Turkey with the strongest line-up. Especially the outside backs were missing, Alexander Bah was out due to a penalty for three yellow cards, Lukáš Masopust was in Prague treating an injury from the match with Karviná.

As expected, the pre-match line-up featured a 3-5-2 formation with Tomas Holeš, Aiham Ousou and Taras Kacharaba as stoppers.

Fans were anxious to see who would start at right wing-back. The chosen one was Ivan Schranz, a great all-rounder who has already played five different positions this year. And he was at least decent in Thursday’s game.

Slavia kept switching from 3-5-2 to 4-3-2-1. When attacking, Tomáš Holeš worked in the middle of the midfield, while during Fenerbahce’s conquest of the defence, he moved between the stoppers. Once again he gave an excellent performance.

Schranz was not lost on the right side. He didn’t have much space for offensive forays, while Dimitris Pelkas, probably the most dangerous player of the home team, played on him.

The Slovakian international defended reliably, except for a situation in the 58th minute when he didn’t catch a run by Ferdi Kadioglu and he assisted the goal for 1:1.

“That’s how we took the field, it was a mind game. We also let the media know that we were going to play 3-5-2 to make it a bit more difficult for the opponent. But right after kick-off we formed a classic four-defender system.

Ivan, except for one, rather accidental, situation, played great, he pulled the thorn out of our side,” assistant coach Jaroslav Köstl told the club website after the match.

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