The prestigious server has taken a closer look at the individual performances of the Czech national team! Was it really that bad?

Another national break is over. Despite serious absences, the Czech national team did not burn out. They drew 2:2 with a strong Wales and won 2:0 against a defensive-minded Belarus. Nevertheless, there are relatively loud critical voices both towards the coach Jaroslav Šilhavy and individual players.

Why? The typical greed of most Czech fans who never have enough? Or was it really a blunder? Perhaps the prestigious statistics server WhoScored can help to discern the result of these disagreements.

The Czechs produced a respectable 16 shots against Belarus, and 6 of them went between the three bars of the opponent’s goal. We can probably agree that we would all like to see more goals, but we must not forget the specifics of international matches.

No team wants to experience an embarrassing defeat and they go into every match with this in mind. Moreover, in the football world, the rule is that if you can put a vigorous, organized and well-defending team on the field, you can be a troublesome opponent for more or less every opponent.

This is the way Belarus has been going for a long time. On the other hand, creating play and creating opportunities from combinations is considerably more difficult and the typology of the opponent (Belarus) may tempt one to subordinate the game to physicality. But that is not what happened! The Czechs clearly dominated the match even in the role of creator and according to the statistics the performance was not that bad.

The only criticism that can be levelled at the players is that they may not have switched on their engines to the level they did at the Euros, but is it any wonder? The players don’t want to get hurt and they also have the fact in their heads that they are clearly the better team.

Rating by WhoScored

Let’s start at the back. Goalkeeper Tomáš Vaclík, apart from a few unpleasant situations (centres etc.), didn’t have to deal with a direct threat to the goal, but a clean sheet counts. WhoScored gave him a 6.8 rating.

The defensive line didn’t score and that’s why all the defenders have an above-average rating, all above 7. Spartan Tomas Wiesner did very well (7.54), made two key passes and had the highest pass success rate of the Czech team (90.7%).

Our midfield performed above standard. Michal Sadilek was selected as man of the match with a rating of 8.1. He had one assist, made 3 key passes, had 87 touches with the ball and his passing success rate was almost 88%.

The captain Tomas Soucek was also almost exemplary. The prestigious server gave him a mark of 7.86. The stocky midfielder had the most touches with the ball of the whole match (108), shot twice on goal, created two key passes, won three header duels and his passes were 86% accurate.

Jubilee goal scorer Adam Hložek takes a mark of 7.67. Outside of his opening goal, he managed to make the most dribbles of any player on the field (3), shot 4 times and had 55 touches on the ball. His passes successfully found the recipient 78% of the time.

A fantastic performance was given by striker Patrik Schick. He scored one goal and assisted one, WhoScored gave him a high rating of 8.06. During the game he shot three times, created two key passes, had 42 touches on the ball and his passing success rate was almost 81%.

On the other hand, Matěj Vydra gave the weakest performance according to the numbers, as he was substituted at halftime. WhoScored gave him a grade of 6.23, he had only 15 touches with the ball in the opening 45 minutes.

Source: WhoScored