Czechia legend Pavel Nedved has urged the current generation to confront the playoff against Ireland with their \u2018heads rather than body\u2019.<\/p>\n
Former Ballon D\u2019Or winner Nedv\u011bd is the general manager of an organisation enduring something of a crisis after sacking Ivan Hasek last month for losing to Faroe Islands and stripping Tom\u00e1\u0161 Sou\u010dek of the captaincy this week.<\/p>\n
Soucek lost his captaincy after the team failed to acknowledge their fans at full-time following Monday\u2019s 6-0 stroll over in Olomouc. Their win bonuses were rerouted to charity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were nervous before the draw and ended up getting Ireland, who are probably in their best form at present,\u201d said the ex-Juventus and Lazio midfielder, part of the last Czech squad that qualified for the World Cup in 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey beat Portugal and then advanced nicely after winning in Hungary. It is always difficult in these types of playoff matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI experienced it as a player 20 years ago. Playoffs are difficult matches mentally but there are always chances. It is always more about the head than the legs.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIreland is a very tough team that defends well and has a great spirit. If we want to advance to the World Cup, we have to want it more than they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nedved is to recommend a new manager ahead of the March 26 semi-final \u2013 likely to be staged at the 19,300-capacity Fortuna Arena in Prague \u2013 but the country\u2019s national team has slipped to 44 in the rankings.<\/p>\n
“The fans have a full right to express their disagreement with the unsatisfactory performance in the recent games,” the association said in a statement after Monday\u2019s embarrassing episode.<\/p>\n
“The reaction of the players should have been quite the contrary. They should have thanked the active fans.”<\/p>\n
Czechia were already assured of second place before behind runaway leaders Croatia but a limp 1-0 friendly win over San Marino was followed by a display against another minnow that was criticised as being similarly tame.<\/p>\n
Angry fans repeatedly chanted “Fight for Czechia”.<\/p>\n
The association didn\u2019t waste time in ditching Hasek after last month\u2019s 2-1 loss to the Faroes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a proposal for the immediate removal of head coach Ivan Hasek,” Czech FA chairman David Trunda thundered at the time.<\/p>\n
He added about the playoff: \u201cWe have to think mainly about the first match, although it is of course good that we would also play the eventual final at home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Czechia legend Pavel Nedved has urged the current generation to confront the playoff against Ireland with their \u2018heads…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1113,61,60,2539,5782,43,5783],"class_list":{"0":"post-150559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-fai","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-league-of-ireland","12":"tag-local-soccer","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-premiership"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}