Representation corresponds to Slavia: You didn’t ask for Masopust’s time off, plus Havel got injured

Lukáš Masopust was injured in Tuesday’s friendly against Wales and will miss 6 weeks. This has angered the Eden club and they have publicly leaned on the Czech national team, who are now answering to the Sešiovans.

Masopust was injured in February, and in Slavia the load was gradually dosed to him. He recovered for the national team meeting and played 75 minutes against Sweden, then had to be substituted because of cramps.

Four days later, in a friendly against Wales, Masopust was back in the starting lineup at right halfback. He was on the pitch after the break, but his body gave him a setback when he suffered a muscle strain and had to make a substitution in the 63rd minute.

The argument about overloading the busiest players in friendly matches came up again.

“The club has been dealing with many injuries to A-team players and has therefore asked the FAČR and national team management not to deploy Slavia players in the preparatory match in Wales, or at least to deploy them sparingly in view of their health and workload,” Slavia said in a statement.

“We do not understand the deployment of the recently injured Lukáš Masopust, who played 76 minutes in the previous qualifying match and was substituted due to cramps, in the starting line-up. The coaches of the national team did not use the opportunity to substitute the player even at half-time. Masopust was injured and will miss six weeks according to the first prognosis of the doctors,” continued the club from Eden.

But the Czech national team did not like this and immediately reacted to the criticism of Slavia.

The national team’s response

“Before the preparatory match in Wales, which was part of the mandatory international dates, the national team management communicated with all Czech clubs. Not only with Slavia, but also with Sparta, Plzeň, Slovácko and Jablonec, which were naturally interested in the workload of their players,” the national team began its statement.

“Confirmation of the friendliness towards Slavia was the non-recruitment of Tomáš Holeš, who was the subject of talks between the club and the national team in the first place. In addition, the national team took into account the player’s workload in recent weeks and the individual agreement with the player.

There were no similarly urgent requests from Slavia regarding Lukáš Masopust and the player himself wanted to play. Thesituation was further complicated by the injury of Milan Havel, who could not play in Wales at all and who, according to the original plans, was supposed to share the workload with Lukáš Masopust,” the national team added on the FAČR website.

If the player himself wanted to start, then it is fine and it cannot be blamed on the national team. However, the last argument about Havel’s injury seems rather strange, since the entire match was spent only on the bench by the back Aleš Matějů.

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