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You're listening to the Footglitch Podcast.

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Love football, learn English.

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How poor was the Czech Republic team in the Nations game against Georgia?

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Can we take any positives from the Georgia Czech Republic game?

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What should the Czech manager Ivan Hasek change now?

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Do you know any idioms to talk about performance?

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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Footglitch Podcast.

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If this is your first time listening, then hello, my name is Denek Lukas.

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And this is a podcast for all football fanatics, for people who are enthusiastic about football

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and at the same time want to improve or work on their English, right?

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If you need to boost your English skills, then this is the right place for you.

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One thing I should say is that I think this podcast isn't suitable for low levels.

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It isn't suitable for beginners.

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I think you have to be at least intermediate and higher level in order to enjoy this podcast.

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However, I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy recording this podcast and that's because

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unfortunately my team, the Czech Republic team, didn't exactly start well their campaign in the Nations League.

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Now, the Czech Republic team is in League B this time.

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That's because we got demoted from League A.

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We are in Group 1 of League B currently and our teams, the teams we are facing are Georgia, Ukraine and Albania.

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And last Saturday, we lost our opening game against Georgia.

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It was away from home, but honestly, the performance was nothing to write home about.

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And I am using an understatement here.

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In fact, I was really pissed off.

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It was a shocking performance.

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The result itself was bad, right?

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4-0, losing 4-0, it's pretty bad.

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But that wasn't even the worst thing.

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The worst thing was the performance from the Czech team.

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It was an absolute disgrace.

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Symbolic performance.

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Just check the player ratings on the Czech media.

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I don't know what happened.

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Honestly, I don't understand how it could be so bad.

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I don't have an explanation for that.

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But what I will say is if things are not going well for you, I mean, if you concede the first goal, then the second.

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If the tactical plan is out of the window, well, you just have to fight, right?

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You have to show the spirit, the fight.

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If not always things pan out the way you want, not always the stars are aligned, right?

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As we said on the previous podcast.

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So instead, what you have to do is pull out all the stops and give your all, right?

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Show determination and fight and grit.

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At least tackle your opponents.

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But the worst thing you can do is just to give up.

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You shouldn't play football if you are like that.

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You're playing for your country.

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I mean, is there anything bigger than that?

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Can you achieve more than winning the World Cup or the Euros as a footballer?

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I don't think you can.

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I don't think you can compare winning a European competition or a league in your country or even the Premier League.

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I don't think it compares to success in the international football.

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And that's because the international football is watched by everyone.

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The whole country is behind you.

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You represent that country, right?

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All those young people that are hoping to see success and they kind of want to go in your footsteps.

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You inspire the whole nation.

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Sometimes the nation is divided over political issues.

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Honestly, at the moment, almost every single European nation is divided.

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Left, right, immigration, no immigration.

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We have so many issues now, war and stuff like that.

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We have so many issues in Europe.

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And the one thing you can do is if you put in a great performance for your country and then it unites the country.

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Right?

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Look at players like Ronaldo or Messi.

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Ronaldo has won everything he could, all the records.

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But whenever he plays for his country, that's something special.

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And I think Messi is even better in this.

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Messi basically, he doesn't just give his all when he plays.

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He goes the extra mile.

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He does, I don't think compared to Ronaldo, I don't think Messi cares about the individual trophies or individual accolades.

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He wants his country to succeed.

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That's why winning the World Cup in Qatar and then winning the South American Championship is the biggest.

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Twice, by the way, Messi did it now.

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Twice, two times in a row.

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I think this is the biggest achievement for him.

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He becomes invincible for his country.

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Like Maradona, it was the same.

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Right?

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You know?

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And that's why we play football.

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That's why we support our teams.

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And if you put in a performance like you did, like for the Czech team against Georgia, it's just such a disgrace, to be honest.

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If we look at how we played against Georgia in the Euros, because we also had Georgia in our group at the Euros and we drew 1-1 there, we were a far superior team in that game.

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We were actually unlucky.

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There is one episode about this which I recorded with my friend Tomas right after this game.

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We were actually quite unlucky to walk away from this game with just a draw.

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I know there was that chance at the end, but bar this, we were the better team.

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We were the superior team.

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Not in this Nations League game.

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Like we did not deserve to get anything at all from this game.

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And if we lost by one or two goals, maybe the scoreline would be a little bit more flattering.

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But actually it would not reflect what was happening on the pitch.

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Now the scoreline 4-1 much better reflects the whole game.

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And I have to say Georgia is not an underdog anymore.

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They have an amazing generation right now.

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And they beat Portugal at the Euros.

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And they played an amazing game against Turkey.

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It was the opening game of the Euros.

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So of course their football is on the rise.

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But still, you know, we have to do so much better.

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I'm sorry.

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I know it's an away game.

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I know.

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The first 15 minutes actually were okay-ish from the Czech team.

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We were on the ball.

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We were holding the ball a lot.

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But it was a little bit static, a little bit passive.

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Now you could say that's because of the way Georgia played.

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They had a, I don't want to say a low block,

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but they were not pressing us at all.

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They were not pressing us.

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They let us play.

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And that was their secret plan.

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That was their plan.

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And they executed their plan really well.

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They scored from a penalty.

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It was a stupid mistake from Krejci.

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I think he slipped and he fouled one of the Georgian players.

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Kvichak, Kvaraskylija took the penalty.

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Even though he's not known for being an excellent penalty taker,

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he did really well there.

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It's interesting that obviously Krejci was responsible for two goals,

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not just this one, but there was one more when there was a cross.

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Was it a corner?

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Either a corner or a cross from the left-hand side.

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And Krejci just did not time his jump well.

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And he missed the header.

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And that's why we conceded one of the other goals.

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But the point is Ladislav Krejci made two huge mistakes.

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And well, obviously he is a young, talented defender,

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a center defender with great leadership skills.

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He was amazing at Sparta.

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But this summer he left for Girona.

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He left to play in La Liga,

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which is a great achievement for Czech football.

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But the problem is he got injured in preseason.

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And now he hasn't started the games.

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Girona's defense is OK, so they don't have a reason to play Krejci,

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even though he is their most expensive signing.

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But the issue here is that Krejci does not really play.

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So he does not have that confidence.

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You need to play games for your club in order to be confident

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in an international game, in my opinion.

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I know Ladislav Krejci, when they ask him this question,

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when a journalist asked him in the post-match interview,

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I know he said that this shouldn't matter and this is not relevant.

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I disagree.

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I think he's saying it because if he said it,

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he would admit that obviously he's disappointed and whatnot.

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I understand why he's saying what he's saying, but it's not true.

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It always matters.

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And it's one of the three problems that I have identified,

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that we currently have in the Czech national team.

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I've identified three huge problems.

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Number one problem is that the players that are currently in the national team,

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that were in the starting eleven,

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and the players that were nominated for this international break,

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we've got two games, the second game is against Ukraine this Tuesday,

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but the players, a lot of them, they don't have confidence

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because they don't play games in their clubs.

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They are not match fit.

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They don't have match fitness.

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What's match fitness?

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Match fitness is the kind of fitness you only get from playing games.

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You can be fit, you can have good fitness,

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if you go to the gym, if you run, if you participate in training sessions,

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but it will never replace the experience of playing games.

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And you need to play games consistently to have good match fitness.

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And definitely a lot of Czech players don't have it.

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The players that play in the best teams,

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it's only Socek and Sofal who have consistently been playing.

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And we don't know what's going to happen there because now at West Ham,

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there have been changes, they have a new manager, a new system.

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There are some speculations that Socek and Sofal might not even make it

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into the starting eleven anymore.

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I hope it's not going to be the case.

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The thing is, we have Patrik Šyk at Leverkusen, doesn't play.

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He is on the bench, right?

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The biggest Czech star arguably, he doesn't play.

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We have Krejci, doesn't play.

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We have, for example, Onze Lingr at Feynorth.

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Now he was transferred back to Slavia, but also didn't play.

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And I can continue like that.

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For example, Hložek didn't play for a long time at Leverkusen.

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Fortunately now he was bought by Hoffenheim,

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and it looks like that will be a different story there.

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Hopefully both, Hložek and there's another Czech player there now,

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Hranáč, Robin Hranáč, who came from Victoria Plzeň, center defender.

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Hopefully they will both play regularly, regular football,

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because only then can the national team benefit.

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So this is problem number one for me.

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The second problem, and we talked about this before, is lack of creativity.

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It was the same issue at the Euros.

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Unfortunately we don't have creative players in the Czech squad.

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Usually, typically the most creative players are center midfielders, right?

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They are the playmakers.

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But we have Antonín Barák, who got a red card in the Euros,

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and who hasn't exactly been pulling out any trees.

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Now he was sent on loan to a Turkish team.

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I can't remember the name, but at Fiorentina he wasn't playing.

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Again, the same issue as I talked before.

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So he is a creative guy.

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He's probably the most creative player of all Czech players we currently have.

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Tomáš Soček isn't a creative player.

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He's a box-to-box midfielder.

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I love him, but he doesn't have that skill set.

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So you need something like that in your team in order to keep the game,

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keep the things ticking, you know.

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If you have a system, you need someone who is going to pass the ball to you, right?

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You make runs, and that player will pass the ball into that space,

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into those pockets, through balls.

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The Czech team used to have players like that.

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Karol Poborský, Nedvěd, Šmice, all these smart players.

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Tomáš Rosický, oh my God, we had plenty of these.

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But now, unfortunately, they are few and far between.

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We don't have enough of those, and we are suffering as a result.

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So in my opinion, what you have to do if you're Ivan Hašek,

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the coach of the Czech national team, you have to adapt.

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You have to adapt to what you have.

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You have to change the system to suit the players you have at disposal.

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So simplify it, make it super simple.

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Play in a simple way.

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If we can't do it, if we don't have creativity, OK, just do long balls.

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I'm sorry, but if we have some tall players, I know this is not modern football,

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but we can't play.

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In this football now, you should just play it out from the back,

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and everybody passing the ball, and a little bit of tit-a-tac-a.

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If you can't do it, just don't do it.

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Play to the player's strengths.

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I think Ivan Hašek, what he has to do is he has to sit down

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and go through all his options and leave no stone unturned.

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He has to try every possible approach, and he has to make it work.

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We cannot build our team on creativity because we don't have any.

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And there's a third problem, which obviously is connected to all this,

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but I think we're not mentally strong enough, and that's really disappointing.

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I think we give up easily.

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Once we started conceding those goals against Georgia,

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it looked like we just crumbled.

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And we started hiding, nobody wanted the ball.

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Now, you could say this is natural, that happens to everyone, right?

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Once you're sort of under pressure, under the cauch,

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once a team is getting better of you, you don't have the ball,

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you're conceding goals, it will impact everyone's mental strength.

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That's true, that's true, but I feel like Czech people,

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and specifically Slavic nations, have this issue.

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I've seen it many times, that we only play well when we are doing well.

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It's the same with the fans.

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The fans only come to the stadiums when the team is playing well.

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Does it make sense? Does it ring a bell?

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Do you have issues like that if you come from Slavic countries?

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I heard, for example, that in the Balkan countries this is always an issue.

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If you play badly, if you concede a lot of goals, you get depressed there,

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and you give up, and you're only half of the player you could be,

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maybe even less than that, you're half of the player you could be,

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if you were playing well.

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Tell me what you think, is this universal, or is this just a Slavic problem,

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or is it just a Czech problem?

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Let me know, I would like to know, send me an email,

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or leave a comment on the YouTube channel, and tell me what you think.

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Honestly, I don't want to take away anything from Georgia's performance.

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Credit to them, they have an amazing generation.

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Players like Kviche Kvaraskalja, their goalkeeper, Mamar Dašvili,

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those are just off the top of my head that I can remember,

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but I think we will soon remember more of these players.

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And honestly, their fans are second to none.

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They created an absolutely electric atmosphere at their stadium in Bilisi,

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and I can only congratulate them on winning the game,

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but I think it was more bad performance of the Czech team

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than Georgia's excellent performance.

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I'm sorry, this is just the way I see it.

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And to be honest, I wish Georgia all the best.

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I'm their fan, I know they have a political problem with Russia,

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and I hope you guys can make it work in your country

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without being dependent on Vladimir Iliich Putin.

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It would be great, I know it's not easy, I don't want to go into that,

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but I'm still glad that I'm in the Czech Republic, not in Georgia, because of this.

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But your football now, I think this is something that can hold you together as a nation, as a glue.

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This is an amazing achievement for you, getting to the Euros, playing well,

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making it out of your group, excellent, lovely stuff.

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Not so lovely for the Czech team, though.

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There are, however, four positives that I have identified.

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Is that even possible? Four positives out of this shitty performance?

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Yeah, it's true, I found four.

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The first one is Calvac's goal, which was top-notch, a huge quality, amazing goal.

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I think it will be in the highlights of this Nations League round.

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It was his first goal, also. It was his very first international goal.

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So all things considered, it was a consolation goal, yeah, but credit to Calvac for scoring that.

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Then it's Lukáš Provod's form, which has been consistently good.

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I think he was the best Czech player. He also saved us from conceding the fifth goal.

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Don't get me wrong, he was still average. He was part of that awful performance.

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But he was slightly above everyone else, in my opinion,

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and he has been consistently playing an amazing football.

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He was the best player at the Euros. He's now playing so well in Slavia, as well.

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Obviously, Slavia are in Europa League.

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I'm not sure that Provod can stay at Slavia for a long time with these sort of performances.

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I think he will be noticed by someone.

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Right, the third good thing was the fact that all Czech players and the Czech manager spoke the truth in the post-match interviews.

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It was Ladislav Krejci, Tomáš Soček, the captain, Ivan Hašek, the manager.

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They all said it as it was. They used no clichés, no excuses.

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They used the right language. They described the situation as it was.

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Ivan Hašek said that it was terrible, that it was horrible.

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Tomáš Soček said it must not repeat again.

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Even Krejci was very self-critical. He said it as it was, honestly.

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The third positive is that it can only get better from now on. It cannot get any worse.

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Obviously, in our next game against Ukraine, which will be a home game, as far as I know,

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we will have to raise the bar, which shouldn't be very difficult because the bar is so low that from there we can only go up.

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Hopefully, we will get three points because we need them so badly.

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I can also talk about some other results if you are interested.

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Let me have a quick look. Portugal vs Croatia 2-1.

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I think Ronaldo scored one goal in that game and it was his 900th competitive goal.

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It was a big occasion. He cried the way he does always.

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Why does it always have to be about him? I don't get it.

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Scotland vs Poland 2-3. A great win for our Polish neighbours.

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Denmark vs Switzerland 2-0. Serbia vs Spain 0-0 in a seemingly one-sided game.

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If you look at the stats, there was only one team in the game and that was Spain dominating Serbia.

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But credit to Serbia for getting a point from this.

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Azerbaijan vs Sweden 1-3. Estonia vs Slovakia 0-1. Slovakia got their first win on Thursday.

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Then on Friday, Belgium vs Israel 3-1. France vs Italy 1-3. A big game in which Italians managed to get three points.

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Kazakhstan vs Norway 0-0. Slovenia vs Austria 1-1. I think a good point for Slovenia because Austria have an amazing team as we could see in the Euros.

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Iceland vs Montenegro 2-0. That's a surprise to me. It looks like Iceland are back.

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Wales vs Turkey 0-0. That's another interesting result.

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Then on Saturday, Germany vs Hungary 5-0. Netherlands vs Bosnia and Herzegovina 5-2.

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Oh my god, this group is fun.

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Then the Czech group is not so much fun because Georgia vs Czechia 4-1. Ukraine vs Albania 1-2.

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Three points for Albania who were excellent at the Euros as well.

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So this is a tough group for us. It looks like we will have to work really hard to even stay in this group.

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Then Iceland vs England 0-2. That's an interesting game because in the England team there are two players who used to play for the Irish team when they were younger.

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One of them is Declan Rice and the second one is Jack Grealish. And guess what? They both scored.

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And also there is a new manager. England have a new manager whose name I can't remember now.

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Gareth Southgate is no longer the England manager. So this is a great result.

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Your first important game, first win. You want to start like that if you are the England manager.

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Then Faraway Island vs North Macedonia 1-1. Armenia vs Latvia 4-1. Moldova vs Malta 2-0.

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I think from the important games that's it.

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Then on Sunday Croatia vs Poland 1-0. So I think this is the second game already.

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So shall I say these results? OK, I'll say these results as well. Croatia vs Poland 1-0. Portugal vs Scotland 2-1.

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I think Ronaldo scored again in this game even though he was a substitute.

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I wonder how he took that. The fact that he wasn't starting. I think he wasn't very happy about that. But he scored. He scored again. That's Ronaldo for you.

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He keeps on scoring. Denmark vs Serbia 2-0. Switzerland vs Spain 1-4. Slovakia vs Azerbaijan 2-0. Slovakia after two games 6 points.

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You can't ask for more. Sweden vs Estonia 3-0. Luxembourg vs Belarus 0-1. Bulgaria vs Northern Ireland 1-0.

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Gibraltar vs Liechtenstein 2-0. And that's it. And I think I forgot about some results. Some previous results.

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I know San Marino won their first competitive game ever. Something like that. And they beat Liechtenstein 1-0. So congratulations to San Marino.

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Okay, I think that's enough about the Nations League. Thank you very much for listening and stay tuned for the Language Corner.

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Okay guys, welcome back to the Language Corner. Let's keep it short and sweet. I would like to talk about idioms related to performance.

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Okay, so when you describe performance, which English idioms can you use? Idioms are like phrases which we use in a language.

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And if you look at the individual words in that phrase, they have a different meaning from the meaning they have within that phrase.

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Hopefully this is clear. But idioms are generally difficult to learn. So the first one I used was when I was describing the performance of the Czech team.

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I said it is nothing to write home about. So if a performance is nothing to write home about, it means it's not very good. Nothing special.

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Usually this is used as an understatement. You could ask someone about their holiday. You could ask, are you having a good time?

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And they might answer, no, actually it's nothing to write home about, which means it's a bit disappointing.

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Okay, then I said if you don't play well, you have to fight. You have to pull out all the stops.

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So to pull out all the stops, it basically means to do everything possible to achieve success, to do everything, to work harder.

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Okay. And then I was talking about Lionel Messi in the international team, in the Argentinian international team.

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And what I said is that he goes the extra mile. He sacrifices his own sort of success for the team's success.

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I think that's the kind of player Messi is. I think he's a bit different from Ronaldo. That's why I prefer Messi over Ronaldo. I'm sorry, I just do.

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But if someone goes the extra mile, it's a very nice idiom. It means that you basically work extra hard. You make a special effort to achieve something.

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You do something extra over what you already do. Okay.

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Then I said if you're Ivan Hasek, and I was talking about the tactics, about his tactics and the fact that we don't have creative players.

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And I said if you're Ivan Hasek, you should leave no stone unturned when you are sort of trying to find the right tactic.

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He needs to figure it out. He has to try every possible approach or method to make it work.

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So if you try every possible approach or method to achieve something, you leave no stone unturned.

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Okay. And then I was talking about Georgia's performance and their fans. I specifically mentioned their fans.

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And I said that their fans are second to none. They are amazing. They are excellent fans.

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Then I described Kalvach's goal for the Czech Republic team as a top-notch goal. Top-notch is world-class, excellent goal.

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And then I also was sort of talking about the positives out of that Czech game.

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I know there were not that many, but I found four. And one of them was that it can only get better. It cannot be any worse.

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And I said we have to raise the bar against Ukraine in our next game against Ukraine.

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If you raise the bar, it means you basically set a higher standard. You perform better. You raise the bar.

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It's not acceptable what happened in that first game. So you have to raise the bar, raise the standards, right?

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Play better in that game. I think this comes from athletics. When you are high jumping in athletics, you raise the bar, right?

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Then you have a chance to win your, what do you say, race, I guess. Is it a race? Jumping competition.

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Whatever. This is not an athletics podcast. So I don't know all the answers. This is a football podcast for English learners.

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This is the Footgrish podcast. And if this is your first time listening, please make sure that you subscribe to the Footgrish podcast,

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you can do wherever you get your podcasts on Spotify, Apple podcasts. You know, you can find the Footgrish podcast through podcasting apps on your phone.

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There is even a place you can watch it on YouTube. There is a video as well. And yeah, that's all I wanted to talk about today.

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Thank you very much for listening and I will speak to you again soon. Bye for now. Cheers.