By Tony Attwood
In this morning’s Guardian we have the headline “Arsenal have everything they need to repeat as Premier League champions” which is a bit of a change from the norm.
But anyway, we can turn away from that as we are now heading for Slavia Prague away, and then Hull at home on Saturday – which is a bit of a contrast.
Below we have part of the Champions League table There are 36 teams in the league at this stage and they each play eight games, and although they alternate home and away each side only plays the other side once.
Rather obviously, given the name, Slavia Prague play in the capital of the Czech Republic which has a population of 1.4 million. Just to make this a properly educational article I can add (because I just looked it up) that London’s 2026 population is estimated (which I think means someone lost count half way through) at 9,188,200. This suggests that the population of the city has grown by almost 50,000 in a year, which I guess was why Arsenal were thinking of expanding their stadium. However that project has been abandoned as you probably have heard so we are staying with the size of stadium we have. At least for now Tottenham can win the “biggest stadium” competition, if nothing else.
Anyway the club we are playing in the Champs League is based in the capital of Bohemia which is the western bit of the Republic. Like all good capital cities it is on a rival (The Vltava). The country is part of the European Union which means that if the UK had not left the EU you would not have had to show your passport, although carrying it was always advised.
So back to the football, here is a bit of the league table of the Euro League after the first three games…
| Rank | GP | W | D | L | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 VfB Stuttgart | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| 7 Arsenal | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 7 |
| 8 Barcelona | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 9 Como | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 10 Manchester City | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 11 Club Brugge | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| 12 Sporting CP | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| 13 Borussia Dortmund | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| 14 FC Bayern München | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| 15 Roma | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 16 Atlético de Madrid | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 17 Shakhtar Donetsk | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 18 PSV | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| 19 Villarreal | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 20 Internazionale | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -1 | 3 |
| 20 Manchester United | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -1 | 3 |
| 22 Napoli | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -2 | 3 |
| 23Galatasaray | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -3 | 3 |
| 24 LASK | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -3 | 3 |
| 25 Sabah Masazir | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -3 | 3 |
| 26 Feyenoord | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -4 | 3 |
| 27 Lens | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -4 | 3 |
| 28 Bodoe/Glimt | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -5 | 3 |
| 29 RB Leipzig | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -5 | 3 |
| 29 AEK Athens | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -5 | 3 |
| 31 Fenerbahce | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | -6 | 2 |
| 32 Slavia Prague | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | -3 | 1 |
In the Czech League the rules are that the top six head straight into Championship Round,while those in places go into a play off round. Those from 11th th 16 go into the relegation round. So everyone gets a bit of interest in the league toward the end of the season.
Last season in the Champions League the obvious teams all rose to the top at once and stayed there but this season Uefa seems to have tried to mix it all up a bit although we are still getting a mix of top and bottom clubs..
Slavia Prague’s full title is Sportovní klub Slavia Praha which is translated as – fotbal (Sports Club Slavia Prague – Football, They were founded in 1892 as a literary and cycling club, which I have always found an interesting combination and wondered if they went for bike rides and then paused to discuss the book they read the night before.
They are currently top of the Czech league and overall they are the second most successful club in the Czech Republic since its independence in 1993. The most successful club is their local rivals Sparta Prague, although Slavia has won the league 22 times and the main cup 11 times.
However most counting is done in relation to events since the foundation of the current Czech League in 1993, wherein the club has won the league nine times. They did also get to the semi-finals of the 1996 Uefa Cup and qualified for the group stage of the Champs League in 2020. In the Europa League they have in the past reached the quarter finals. And indeed once went on a 54 game unbeaten run.
They are for the moment the dominant force in football within the Czech Republic and are clearly top of their league with nine victories and four draws from 13 games this season. They’ve knocked in 32 goals and conceded seven, and sit seven points above second placed Mladá Boleslav who have 24 points.
All in all therefore it would appear their ambition is to finish in the top 25 of the current round of games and so enter the Europa League for the next phase of the competitions. You may recall that Arsenal won this league phase of the competition last year winning each and every one of their eight games.
So given the position of the opposition we might consider this a bit of a diversion and thus not play the complete first XI from the league games. However this might sound a bit dodgy, but does give those players who are constantly on the fringe of the starting XI something to look forward to. The interesting question is what happens to Max Dowman – does he get a game? I suspect not, but we shall see.
