Zlinceste: Czech league’s answer to EPL champions Leicester
prague — After only nine matches, a provincial soccer club from eastern Czech Republic is starting to draw comparisons with Premier League champion Leicester.
FC Fastav Zlin, a 900-1 shot to win the Czech league title and already dubbed “Zlincester,” is in the early title hunt with the country’s traditional powers. “It’s a nice comparison,” Zlin coach Bohumil Panik said in a recent interview. “It pleases me. Leicester is, for a small club like us, an example to follow.”
Leicester surprised just about everybody last season, starting well in the Premier League and holding on to win the English title for the first time in its history.
Zlin, a town of 75,000 where in 1894 Tomas Bata founded what was to become a global shoe empire, started as a soccer team in 1919 and made its debut in Czechoslovakia’s first division in 1938.
The team has never won the title, and did well to even stay in the top league after finishing only three points above the relegation zone last season. “We hit the bottom in the spring,” Panik said, referring to a winless streak in early 2016. “The players well remember that and don’t want to go through it again. The team has learned a lesson.”
This season, Zlin is five points ahead of Sparta Prague and trails leaders Mlada Bloeslav and Viktoria Plzen by only one point.
With its budget estimated to be less than $2 million a year, a stadium that seats just over 6,000 spectators and no big successes in the past, Zlin is a very unlikely candidate to challenge the Czech heavyweights.
Under the name Gottwaldov, it only once played in major European competition, and was eliminated in the first round of the Cup Winners’ Cup by PSV Eindhoven in 1970.
Yet this season, the Cobblers beat defending champion Viktoria Plzen 2-0, held Sparta Prague to a 1-1 draw and so far have six wins and three draws. Similar to Leicester, Zlin’s unheralded players rely on a well-organized defense and fast counter-attacks, punishing any defensive mistakes. —