Slavia Prague lose 0-2 to Sabah in the Champions League

Slavia Prague suffered a 0-2 defeat to Azerbaijan’s Sabah of Baku in the second round of the Champions League. The Czech club have not won in the competition for 6,965 days, since September 2007, and their winless run has grown to 20 matches.

How Slavia let the chance slip

The first half was sluggish: the crowd saw the first shot on goal only in the 35th minute, something that has not happened in the Champions League since the 2003/04 season, according to the tournament’s official statistics. The game came to life after the break, but in the 49th minute the visitors took the lead: Parris scored the first Champions League goal in the club’s history. Sabah are only nine years old.

The second goal decided the match. In the 88th minute goalkeeper Markovic came out of his area, controlled the ball badly, and Mickels shot into an empty net. David Moses, who had got back, slipped and the ball rolled between his legs. According to the Czech press, Slavia created at least five real chances and failed to take any of them.

“We played nothing like we wanted to. I don’t understand why we only started playing after the first goal,” admitted midfielder Lukáš Provod. Coach Jindřich Trpišovský said he would also like to know why the team struggled so much.

Money and an underdog complex

This is Slavia’s second defeat in this season’s Champions League, and they have zero points. A win in the tournament this season pays 50 million crowns, a draw 18 million. In the Czech league, meanwhile, the club lead the table unbeaten, and under Trpišovský they have won the title five times. But in European competition the team keeps stumbling, and it is starting to look like a psychological block.

The next chance comes in a week, away at Fenerbahçe in Istanbul, but after the match in Baku it is hard to believe in success.

The lottery-winning coach at the top

The hero of the evening was Sabah coach Valdas Dambrauskas. Twenty-three years ago he won four thousand litas in the Lithuanian lottery, roughly the average annual income in Lithuania, and went to England with his girlfriend to learn football, washing dishes, working as a barman and looking after children in a kindergarten. Now his team has come through four summer qualifying rounds and beaten the Czech champions.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz