Slavia Ten Men Steal Victory in Teplice
4. 10. 2003, Redakce
Slavia achieved to win in Teplice 1-0 although it seemed to be almost impossible task due to the course of the match. The red-whites suffered several blows in the first half when the defender Milan Zacharias was sent off and the goalkeeper Matus Kozacik was injured and had to be substituted. The brave resistance in defence lasting for almost an hour finally led to three points when Karel Pitak scored a goal after a rare Slavia counter-attack.
Slavia achieved to win in Teplice 1-0 although it seemed to be almost impossible task due to the course of the match. The red-whites suffered several blows in the first half when the defender Milan Zacharias was sent off and the goalkeeper Matus Kozacik was injured and had to be substituted. The brave resistance in defence lasting for almost an hour finally led to three points when Karel Pitak scored a goal after a rare Slavia counter-attack.
Adam Petrous returned to the starting line-up after his injury to reinforce Slavia defence that had to work really hard. The first good chance of Teplice came in the ninth minute when Vorisek beat two defenders but his shot was blocked by Petrous. Luckily for Slavia the deflected ball did not finish in the net. The forwards Bencik and Rezek caused more and more troubles to our defence and they were joined by midfielder Lengyel whose header flew above the crossbar. Bencik scored a goal in the twenty-second minute, but luckily he was in offside position. Then the first blow for Slavia came - Rezek was quicker than Zacharias who was forced to foul him not to leave him running to the keeper. He was sent off. The series of good chances for Teplice followed but Vorisek, Lengyel and Bencik missed all of them. Bencik in his chance injured our goalie Kozacik who had to be substituted.
Radek Cerny came to the pitch to deny several very good chances of Teplice in the second half. Bencik´s header and especially the greatest chance of Roman Lengyel in the sixty-sixth minute were the events before the winner of Slavia. Adauto passed the ball to Pitak in the box after a good play of Muller and Latka and Pitak opened the scoring! And as the chance of Horvath was not taken and Slavia survived some other dangerous situations in front of their goal, we won a very important match. Although down to ten men Slavia taught Teplice a lesson in effectiveness.
"Today we saw that soccer may have a lot of faces," said Slavia coach Miroslav Beranek. "We had to manage to put up with two difficult situations in the first half and we had to substitute twice." He substituted Martin Latka for Martin Lukes and also had to substitute the keeper Kozacik whose cut on his head was sewn with twelve stitches.
"We reminded to our players the derby against Sparta in the halftime and also the victory of Teplice who were down to ten men against Liberec. We were concentrated and responsible in the defence," he appraised the performance of his players. "Teplice had a lot of very good opportunities, we were very lucky in some of them," the coach admitted. "We were rewarded for the will we showed. We won and I believe that this will be a great motivation for the following matches." Beranek also appraised the performance of Radek Cerny. "I wish I could send to the pitch both our keepers - Cerny is in great shape, he proved that during the trainings."
Teplice coach Frantisek Straka was not in a very good mood. "Soccer is not a logic game, the better team lost today," he could not believe the result. "No matter we played against eleven or ten men, we put Slavia under pressure, worked out five golden chances. I have to appraise my team, unfortunately we failed to score a goal. But this is a very good way we are on. We will go on although we lost the match today," he sighed.
Teplice - Slavia 0:1 (0:0)
Goal: 69. Pitak
Teplice line-up: T. Poštulka - M. Doležal (82. R. Divecký), K. Rada (62. V. Ryška), T. Hunal, V. Leitner - P. Verbíř (88. D. Tesařík), P. Horváth, R. Lengyel, P. Voříšek - J. Rezek, H. Benčík
Slavia line-up: M. Kozáčik (45. R. Černý) - K. Kratochvíl, Mil. Zachariáš, A. Petrouš, M. Müller - M. Lukeš (40. M. Latka), R. Bejbl, R. Dostálek, K. Piták - T. Došek, E. Adauto da Silva (72. P. Kuka)
YC: 54. M. Doležal, 74. P. Horváth - 29. K. Kratochvíl, 74. M. Müller, 90. R. Černý
RC: 30. Mil. Zachariáš
