Šilhavy’s risk: Against the creative Spaniards he tried to play with ten men, the result was a goal scored at 1:1

It looked like the Czech national team would go into the match with Spain with a 1:0 lead when young Gavi struck in the setup. His goal was a logical outcome of the power play, which the visiting team had due to Jaroslav Šilhavy’s decision.

The Czech national team had a good game from the fifth minute when Jakub Pešek scored after a quick action. The stunned Spaniards couldn’t get into the rhythm, on the contrary, the Czech team was boosted by the opening goal.

The Czechs’ play was not affected by the forced substitution of the injured Jaroslav Zelený, who was replaced by the more offensive Jakub Jankto. However, Jankto was also unfortunate to be injured at the end of the first half after taking a shot to the thigh from Pablo Sarabia.

Although the Getafe midfielder was carried away by the medical staff on a stretcher, Jaroslav Šilhavý did not make a substitution. There were four minutes left in the first half and there was no indication that Jankto would recover during the break.

The outnumbered Spaniards logically sensed a chance to level the score. It is difficult to face their game with eleven players, let alone ten, which was evident in the second minute of the setup. A free Gavi left-footed Tomáš Vaclík and the criticism for the conceded goal went mainly to Šilhavy.

Why didn’t Šilhavý send someone on for the obviously injured Jankt in the first half? The management team has only three slots to make substitutions and one of them had to pay for the injured Zelený. If Jankto was substituted, Šilhavy would have only one slot in the second half in which he could substitute and would have to send three players at once, which is almost impossible to do because of tactics.

However, if Jankto substituted at halftime, it would not count towards the substitution slots, as halftime substitutions do not delay time. So Šilhavy wanted to survive the four minutes and go into the second half with two substitution slots and a greater chance of reviving the game. It was a risk that made sense, but unfortunately it didn’t work out.

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