Who can Slavia thank for the promotion? Especially Schranz and Olayinka, whose work was incredible

After an extremely tough physical battle, Slavia advanced to the spring stage of the Conference League, finishing ahead of Union Berlin. The sixth Bundesliga side wanted to succeed with a lot of strong tactics, but two Sechivans in particular are the most responsible for it not working out. Ivan Schranz and Peter Olayinka.

Not only did Schranz score a wonderful and very important goal, what was almost more important for Slavia was how much he and Peter Olayinka ran away with.

Once again, Jindřich Trpišovský showed that he is absolutely brilliant at choosing tactics for a certain opponent. Against Union he went with a 3-5-2 formation and he knew very well why he was doing it.

When Slavia took the lead, they could have easily allowed themselves to concede and still progressed. So it was clear that Union would resort to long kicks and rely on winning header duels and that something near the whitewash would fall through for Slavia.

The equalising goal did come, with Kruse scoring in the 64th minute. Plenty of teams would have crawled in at that point and waited in the block for the kill, Union had counted on that scenario as well. But Slavia didn’t back down.

And it was the moment of Schranz and Olayinka, who showed an incredible physical fund. If the Susians had pulled into their own half and waited in the block, it could have had fatal consequences. After all, Union are a very power-based team and when a ball reached the Slavia whitewash towards the end of the match, the Berlin strikers often won the header.

But Slavia didn’t want to let that happen. The attacking duo of Schranz – Olayinka were constantly pressing the stoppers and goalkeeper, so they had to kick from their own area. This was a huge help for the Sešiovans’ defence, as it is a huge difference to have a duel in the middle of the pitch or in your own whitewash.

Schranz and Olayinka made incredible sacrifices for the team, they really left everything on the field. In fact, when the Red and Whites got the ball, they immediately offered themselves up for breakaway opportunities.

In the 87th minute, Olayinka ran onto a long ball behind the defence, out-sprinted the home stopper, but then the ball got away from him over the line. So he took his feet on his shoulders and ran back, seconds later the Sixers regained possession of the ball and the Nigerian striker again sprinted towards the Union goal, his shot pushed out for a corner by Ronnow.

Olayinka slumped to the ground after this three-pointer until his legs were shaking. He had done a tremendous amount of work for the team and was deservedly replaced by Plavsic in the 88th minute.

Immediately after his arrival, however, Olayinka’s contribution was felt. Plavsic was not pressing at the same pace, often letting Union defenders take the ball out to the half of the pitch, not approaching them very consistently. That’s also why the home team got into a snarl and kicked balls all the way to the whitewash, which was very dangerous.

Meanwhile, if Schranz and Olayinka hadn’t been doing this black work for the entire second half, Union would have been within striking distance much sooner. But it was the pressing of this attacking duo in particular that kept Union at a safe distance from Ales Mandous’ goal, and it is to them that the Susians can mainly thank for the progress.

Source:: Livesport