Köstl on Sick’s Condition, Eduard’s Profession & Gibraltar Counterattacks

He already came from the match in Pilsen with a minor injury. It looked like he might start training after San Marino, but it didn’t go the way we expected. It is not a fatal problem, he had a discomfort in his leg, with which he would not be able to start. It didn’t make sense for him to be with us anymore.

Already in Prague, we dealt with the wings or tens and the reserve line, where we did not have so many players. But we will help each other in the reserve, so we chose players up front. For example, we didn’t want to “steal” Yannick Eduard from Michal Bíleka from the twenty-one. Vasulin was also an option. In the end, we decided on Mojmír, who I still consider to be one of the best strikers in our country. His typology may be useful. Moreover, I would not underestimate how the tool works. Mojmír knows everything, and above all, he never let us down. Coincidentally, we nominated him a year ago and he showed quality.

At the beginning of the year, Ivan Hašek and I already listed players from abroad with Czech roots. In the end, we managed to contact Yannick through the youth coaches, we were also in Leipzig, where we searched for him. He has enormous potential and is the type of footballer who can definitely be in the national team.

He trained on Saturday, he should be ready for at least part of the match. We still have one health problem in the squad, we’ll see.

It’s a championship match for the national team, so a comprehensive performance. To be more emotionally immersed in the match, so that people feel that we are going after the result. Against San Marino, I logically did not praise, even though everything was not completely bad. I want better movement, more runs behind the defense, activity in the spaces or closing the back post. Ideally, we should help ourselves with a quick goal.

Yes. The team then has better dynamics. If the opponent is in range, they still sense a chance. And you are not cool enough to finish the actions like in training. It can also help us to perform better overall.

There is no such thing as an understatement in today’s football. Just look at other qualifying matches and results. The mental side is a continuous process, not that we will say one day and everything will be fine. We have individual interviews. More videos to come so we’re in the best possible shape when it all breaks out. Anyway, Gibraltar is not the team we started the qualifiers with and won there 4-0.

They have a more pragmatic style and a different layout. We have to watch out for counter attacks and their skillful players. But mainly we focus on ourselves to overcome their 5-4-1 formation. For example, they performed very well with Croatia and Montenegro. We want to learn from this and break the defense earlier, not like the Croatians, who only scored the second goal in the 78th minute in a 3-0 win.

We did the analysis, the initial position was fine, but then it fell somewhere we didn’t want. The game was fragmented, we didn’t get up to speed, we all have to work on that together. We will try to preserve something, but we need to be more interesting in terms of movement and technique.

We’ll see. I wish them that, it also depends on the state of health. On Saturday, we had a meeting and discussed what the representation means, what it is to be at the meeting at all. I think everyone got it. I like stories like this and I wish the guys in the toolbox would stick around and continue to come on board. That it’s not just a November shot.

The players have quality and we don’t have many more. When I look at Europe, not many guys are playing there. At key clubs in the league, there are mostly foreigners in key positions. This is a consequence of where Czech football is heading. Boys have a better chance to represent than, say, ten years ago. They are happy to be with us and I believe that if they come on, they will repay with a great performance.