Sparta only drew with Stavanger despite a huge pressure and a solid performance. The Spartans will have a tough rematch

On Thursday, 21 July, Sparta Prague played their European tour at home against Viking Stavanger. The Prague team played an active football against the third team of the Norwegian league and the Spartans created a lot of chances. Despite the great performance, Sparta is not happy about the victory.

From the beginning Sparta controlled this match in terms of pace and chances created, while they also had the ball on their feet more often.

Brian Priske’s charges created their first significant chance in the 12th minute when Lukas Haraslin’s shot towards the right post was blocked by a Stavanger defender.

Sparta was indeed very active on the ball and often got into the attacking zone thanks to solid combination football. Dávid Hancko had a serious scoring opportunity in the 30th minute.

After a centre from a corner kick, he fought his way into the penalty area to a deflected ball, but it was just wide of the right post. So no goal was scored from this chance either. After that, the Norwegian team also attacked, but did not get any significant threat to the Spartan goal.

In the last minutes of the first half, Sparta got into further pressure, but Adam Karabec, Jan Kuchta or Jakub Pešek could not get the ball behind the Stavanger goalkeeper.

In the first half, the fans at Letná did not see any goals. However, the statistics spoke clearly for Sparta. Sparta sent 18 shot attempts, but only 3 went on target.

In the second half, the game looked similar to the first forty-five minutes. Spartans again created a lot of pressure during the second act. In the 75th minute, for example, the fans watched a beautiful action of Jan Mejdr and Tomáš Čvančara.

The former sent a fluffy centre to Čvančara in the small area, the subsequent header of the former Jablonec striker just missed the top crossbar. Sparta continued their pressure practically throughout the second half, with Stavanger only getting more decent opportunities late in the game.

However, just like in the first half, none of them significantly threatened Sparta goalkeeper Dominik Holc. At the very end, a little frustration was visible on the players in red jerseys, which resulted in unnecessary fouls.

Despite a first half in which the referee did not issue a single yellow card, the Lithuanian referee handed out six yellow cautions in the second act.

Even a five-minute setup did not help Letenske. Sparta therefore only drew 0:0 with Stavanger on home soil. The return leg is scheduled for exactly one week later, on 28 July on Viking’s artificial grass.

Source: European Conference League