Victorious over Scotland (0-2) when it entered the Euro competition, the Czech Republic, which faces England on Tuesday, June 22 for its last Group D match, could already claim a trophy: that of the best goal of the tournament, thanks to the 45m lob from striker Patrik Schick. Still a scorer on the second day against Croatia (1-1), the Leverkusen (Germany) player was trained at Sparta Prague.
The exception that proves the rule, because it is the neighbor of Sparta which has been the driving force behind the selection coached by Jaroslav Silhavy for several years. With five players – six if Ondrej Kudela had not been suspended for alleged racist insults in the Europa League – Slavia is the most represented of the twenty-five clubs whose players compete for the Euro. Everything except the result of chance.
After the start of a century spent in the shadow of Sparta – seven Czech Republic league titles between 2000 and 2010 – Slavia experienced an enchanted parenthesis, with two consecutive titles won in 2008 and 2009. Before the decline. On the verge of bankruptcy, the club was saved in September 2015. A few months earlier, Czech President Milos Zeman went to China with a view to developing economic partnerships.
The head of state attaches there the services of a mysterious Ye Jianming whom he appoints adviser. China sees it as a gateway to Central Europe and the energy giant CEFC (China Energy Fund Committee) then began a series of investments in the Czech Republic, and became the majority shareholder of Slavia, up to 60%, before acquiring the rest in 2016.
A private fund whose boss is none other than… Ye Jianming. The Sino-Czech operation of seduction begins. “We want to bring the club back to where it needs to be”, Ye Jianming immediately announces. The tone is set. The conglomerate is investing nearly 35 million in the renovation of the stadium, which now hosts the meetings of the national team.
The transfer market, a laboratory
After a year of transition, the new management sees the transfer market as a laboratory, combining promising and established players at home, such as new internationals Josef Husbauer and Antonin Barak. Two decisive players in the reconquest of the title in 2017, under the leadership of a certain Jaroslav Silhavy, now coach of the national team.
A man with innovative methods is behind this clever and effective recruitment: Jakub Dobias. The founder of the 11hacks.net site offers his services to collect and analyze player data. “Slavia wanted to be active in the market, but it was the door open to casting errors. I came up with a project to rebuild the team, with upstream preparation that lasted over six months. The club really appreciated the idea and gave me a lot of latitude to create a team entirely devoted to analysis ”, develops the former professional poker player.
“David Zima or Lukas Provod had barely played a few professional matches before signing for us and becoming pillars of Slavia”, abounds Jakub Dobias
The collaboration started in 2016, the year in which only one Slavia player was among the twenty-three Czechs selected for the Euro in France. Dobias and his team are developing more than 500 mathematical models of data analysis to provide the most complete files on players.
The 31-year-old analyst has thus unearthed several talents. “We have several examples, like those of David Zima or Lukas Provod. They had barely played a few professional matches before signing for us and becoming pillars of Slavia ”, abounds Jakub Dobias. The first dispute today the Euro and the second should have been if a serious injury contracted in May had not decided otherwise.
Become a benchmark in Europe
Slavia is a club which trains, and which sells – sometimes at a high price – certain players, like Tomas Soucek, pure product of the training academy, and Vladimir Coufal, transferred to the English club West Ham in 2020, for 21 million and 6 million euros. Two elements that have become indisputable holders of a team that finished, in 2021, sixth in the Premier League.
For the sporting director Jiri Bilek, the ambition is to assert itself in the long term as the best Czech team, like PSG in France. A horizon that will allow the club to regularly taste the scent of the European Cups, and the national team to improve. “During Euro 1996, Slavia Prague played an important role in the success of the selection with players like [Karel] Poborsky or [Vladimir] Smicer. We won the championship that year and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup ”, Jiri Bilek remembers.
Four-time champions of the Czech Republic in the last five years and quarter-finalist of the Europa League in 2019 and 2021, the Red and Whites of the capital club set an example. Bodes well for another feat of the Narodni tym (“The national team”, in Czech), twenty-five years after the epic that saw him reach the final in London? Leader of its group, the Czech Republic is already on track to rally the eighth. It only remains for him to confirm Tuesday against the Three Lions.
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