The national team is looking for stoppers, which pair will Šilhavý bet on in the qualification against Poland?

The Czech national team will play an important qualifying match for EURO 2024 against Poland on Friday. Together with our neighbour, Jaroslav Šilhavy’s charges are the biggest favourite to qualify. But the traditional stopper duo is missing, who will the management team bet on this time?

For EURO 2020 Jaroslav Šilhavy has bet on the stopper pair Tomáš Kalas – Ondřej Čelůstka. It worked steadily and helped the team to the quarter-finals.

Subsequently, in the qualification for the World Cup in Qatar, this duo was not always available, so Tomáš Holeš, David Zima, Filip Kaša or Jakub Brabec got into the starting line-up.

In the barrage Šilhavý bet on a three-goal system and trusted the trio Zima-Brabec-Holeš. The Czech national team followed this formation in the Nations League, where Zima and Brabec played five games together, and Ladislav Krejčí, Aleš Matějů and Václav Jemelka were substituted alongside them. In the last match, the Czechs returned to 4-2-3-1 and Kúdela came in next to Zima.

In the last performances so far (Faroe Islands friendlies, Turkey) Šilhavý has stabilized the Brabec-Zima midfield pairing. And he would probably have relied on that one in the qualifiers as well, but Zima injured his knee and won’t be available for a while.

So who to bet on against Poland on Friday? Given the small number of stoppers, it is likely that Šilhavy will bet on only two stoppers again.

He has Jakub Brabec, Tomáš Holeš, Václav Jemelka, Ladislav Krejčí and newcomer Martin Vitík at his disposal.

The most likely bet seems to be on the most experienced pair Brabec – Holeš. However, if Šilhavý wanted to use Holeš in the midfield, he would probably bet on Jemelka or Krejčí.

The pair of Brabec – Holeš is quite solid, although the duels with Lewandowski will be extremely difficult. The stopper from Thessaloniki, Greece has 33 national team starts, the Slavic all-rounder 17. Of the stoppers, no one comes close to Jemelka (7), Krejci (2), Vitik (2).

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