Czech Republic
Slavia’s bosses could only laugh. At the end of August 2019, Slavia Prague were drawn into a Champions League group with Barcelona, Internazionale and Borussia Dortmund. Tomas Syrovatka, the club vice-chairman, burst out laughing. The so-called “group of death” came just four years after the club had narrowly escaped bankruptcy.
In the end, Slavia, described as the group’s minnow, were far from pushovers. In the first game, they drew 1-1 at the San Siro only after a stoppage-time equaliser for the home side. At the end of October, they unluckily lost at home to Barcelona (1-2), only to draw away (0-0). Two points out of six games: hardly a miracle, but it was definitely a Czech champion punching above its weight.
It was proof of a good strategy by
Slavia, a club with limited experience in European football. The season before, they were beaten by Chelsea in the Europa League quarter-finals, and made it to the UEFA Cup semi-finals in 1996. They made it to the Champions League group stage in 2007-08, but after that things started to go wrong.
Financial troubles, mounting debts and mismanagement sent the club spiralling out of control. They almost missed out on obtaining their league licence for 2011-12, and came very close to bankruptcy in the summer of 2015. As their rivals Sparta Prague and the newly-emerged Viktoria Plzen came to dominate Czech football, Slavia looked a shadow of their former selves.
In 2015, their saviour came in the form of Chinese conglomerate CEFC China Energy. They appointed Jaroslav Tvrdik as president, a former minister in the government of Milos Zeman, the country’s current president (who, incidentally, has been criticised by opponents for his closeness to China). In 2018, the club changed hands again, this time to another Chinese company, Sinobo Group, after whom the club stadium is named.
Tvrdik remained in charge, overseeing remarkable success. Since his arrival, Slavia have won league titles in 2017, 2019 and 2020, with another likely to follow in 2021.
His best decision was probably the appointment of coach Jindrich Trpisovsky. The Czech has created a functioning collective, able to fight and earn good results against bigger clubs. What Slavia lack in individual quality, they make up for with fighting spirit, high pressing, great counter-attacks and willingness to run. Trpisovsky’s energetic style has drawn comparisons to Jurgen Klopp.
His predecessor, Dusan Uhrin Jr, says: “Slavia play all-round football and they can run. Their pressing is very good, they come very closely to their opponents and usually manage to get back into defence quickly.” The weakness he sees is that Slavia can get exposed at the back at times, which cost them in some European games. “In the Czech league, they are better than anyone, because they have great players and manage to win balls in the opponents’ half.”
Trpisovsky is football-mad. In 2013, he was coach of SK Horni Mecholupy, a third-tier side. Before that, coaching wasn’t enough for him to earn a living, so he was still employed as a restaurant manager. He would get up at four o’clock every morning, and spend his days between work and the training ground. After leading Viktoria Zizkov in the second division, he got a job in the
What Slavia lack in individual quality, they make up for with fighting spirit, high pressing, great counter-attacks and willingness to run. Trpisovsky’s energetic style has drawn comparisons to Jurgen Klopp
top flight with Slovan Liberec and, in December 2017, became Slavia coach.
“He spends 15 or 16 hours with football every day,” David Cermak, a journalist for says. “He watches videos of opponent’s games and then prepares his players. Even when they play against a small team in the Czech cup, he still brings videos for his players and shows them strengths and weaknesses of the team.”
It was during his spell at Viktoria Zizkov that Trpisovsky discovered the player that would become crucial to him: Tomas Soucek. The midfielder came on loan from Slavia, where he was unable to break into the first team. The pair linked up for another loan at Liberec, and when Trpisovsky took charge of Slavia, he built the team around Soucek.
The midfielder has been one of the stars behind Slavia’s success and remains connected to the club, in spite of his move to West Ham United in January 2020. After their victory against Leicester City in this season’s Europa League, players celebrated on the pitch and one of the staff members showed Soucek on FaceTime wearing a Slavia shirt.
A sensible transfer policy has played a key role in Slavia’s improvement. Thanks to their Chinese investors, they are able to invest in players both from the Czech league and neighbouring countries. Through the use of data, they unearthed the likes of Cameroon centre-back Michael Ngadeu-Ngadjui from Romanian side Botosani in 2016, later selling him to Gent for almost four times as much as they paid for him.
Slavia know that they can’t compete with the riches of Europe’s elite, but they try not to panic in the transfer market and sell at the right moment. In 2020, Slavia sold Tomas Soucek to West Ham United for £19 million, in a transfer that broke the Czech league’s record. Slavia previously refused lucrative offers for Soucek from Italy, as they expected the Champions League campaign to push his value higher. They were right to think so, and West Ham also bought right-back Vladimir Coufal for £5.4m in October. Thanks to this season’s strong showing in Europe, they expect to earn more on their players.
“Soucek is a footballing robot,” said Trpisovsky. “We have to develop more players like him.”
This approach will be useful in upcoming transfer windows, with offers from bigger leagues expected to come in for their new stars. 19-year-old Senegalese striker Abdallah Sima, who joined Slavia from Taborsko in the Czech second tier, has been linked to several Premier League clubs. “In his case, I believe he has potential for Premier League. The only question remains if he would be ready to manage it already,” Cermak says.
Sima has been one of the stars of this season’s Europa League campaign, scoring goals in a run that has seen the Czech underdogs beat Bayer Leverkusen, Nice, Leicester and Rangers before meeting Arsenal in the quarter-finals.
Their campaign, however, was undoubtedly overshadowed by the accusations of racism that followed their clash with the Scottish champions, when Rangers’ Finnish midfielder Glen Kamara accused Slavia’s centre-back Ondrej Kudela of a racist slur.
It was in the 87th minute. Slavia were leading 2-0 and Rangers were already down to nine men after red cards for Kemar Roofe and Leon Balogun. Victory for the Czechs was beyond doubt. After a foul in Rangers’ half, Kudela walked up to Kamara, covered his mouth and shouted something in Kamara’s ear.
Clubs have different versions of the story. Kamara alleges that Kudela called him “a f ****** monkey” – which was confirmed by the Rangers boss Steven Gerrard. “I 100 per cent believe him, what he’s saying in terms of the accusation. Other players around heard it,” said Gerrard. “It’s over to UEFA now, and I just hope it doesn’t get brushed under the carpet.”
The official statement released by Slavia denied the allegations and claimed Kudela had said: “you f ****** guy,” before praising the defender for his leadership on the pitch and popularity among team-mates and fans.
“It’s over to UEFA now, and I just hope it doesn’t get brushed under the carpet” Steven Gerrard, Rangers manager
As Kamara and his team-mates tried to report the slur to the referee, chaos ensued, resulting in yellow cards for Kudela and Rangers captain Connor Goldson.
“UEFA will be dealing with everything that happened in Glasgow,” Slavia stated. “We believe they will investigate it properly and we will respect their decision.”
Sadly, it is not the first accusation that has been made against the club.
In 2019, Inter’s Romelu Lukaku complained of racist chants from Slavia’s fans. “I hope that UEFA now do something about it, because the whole stadium did it when we scored the first goal, and that’s not good for the people watching this game,” he said after the Champions League group stage game.
Lukaku’s allegation came just weeks after Barcelona defender Nelson Semedo had claimed something similar, and in 2019 Slavia had a stand in their stadium closed after racist chants towards Sparta Prague midfielder Guelor Kanga. In both cases,
Slavia rejected the allegations.
Yet clearly, the club has a problem. The day after the Rangers game, one of their fan groups posted an image on social media of a banner containing the words: “Kamara – just a n ***** ”.
“I am terribly ashamed of the content of the photo published by some radical fans,” said Tvrdik, while the Slavia website was quick to post a statement saying that both the club and its other fan groups denounce these fans.
It is a stain that will be hard to wash off. Whatever strides forward that Slavia have made in terms of their football and their finances, in other ways they still have a very long way to go.