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Love football, learn English.
How poor was the Czech Republic team in the Nations game against Georgia?
Can we take any positives from the Georgia Czech Republic game?
What should the Czech manager Ivan Hasek change now?
Do you know any idioms to talk about performance?
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Footglitch Podcast.
If this is your first time listening, then hello, my name is Denek Lukas.
And this is a podcast for all football fanatics, for people who are enthusiastic about football
and at the same time want to improve or work on their English, right?
If you need to boost your English skills, then this is the right place for you.
One thing I should say is that I think this podcast isn't suitable for low levels.
It isn't suitable for beginners.
I think you have to be at least intermediate and higher level in order to enjoy this podcast.
However, I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy recording this podcast and that's because
unfortunately my team, the Czech Republic team, didn't exactly start well their campaign in the Nations League.
Now, the Czech Republic team is in League B this time.
That's because we got demoted from League A.
We are in Group 1 of League B currently and our teams, the teams we are facing are Georgia, Ukraine and Albania.
And last Saturday, we lost our opening game against Georgia.
It was away from home, but honestly, the performance was nothing to write home about.
And I am using an understatement here.
In fact, I was really pissed off.
It was a shocking performance.
The result itself was bad, right?
4-0, losing 4-0, it's pretty bad.
But that wasn't even the worst thing.
The worst thing was the performance from the Czech team.
It was an absolute disgrace.
Symbolic performance.
Just check the player ratings on the Czech media.
I don't know what happened.
Honestly, I don't understand how it could be so bad.
I don't have an explanation for that.
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.
If the tactical plan is out of the window, well, you just have to fight, right?
You have to show the spirit, the fight.
If not always things pan out the way you want, not always the stars are aligned, right?
As we said on the previous podcast.
So instead, what you have to do is pull out all the stops and give your all, right?
Show determination and fight and grit.
At least tackle your opponents.
But the worst thing you can do is just to give up.
You shouldn't play football if you are like that.
You're playing for your country.
I mean, is there anything bigger than that?
Can you achieve more than winning the World Cup or the Euros as a footballer?
I don't think you can.
I don't think you can compare winning a European competition or a league in your country or even the Premier League.
I don't think it compares to success in the international football.
And that's because the international football is watched by everyone.
The whole country is behind you.
You represent that country, right?
All those young people that are hoping to see success and they kind of want to go in your footsteps.
You inspire the whole nation.
Sometimes the nation is divided over political issues.
Honestly, at the moment, almost every single European nation is divided.
Left, right, immigration, no immigration.
We have so many issues now, war and stuff like that.
We have so many issues in Europe.
And the one thing you can do is if you put in a great performance for your country and then it unites the country.
Right?
Look at players like Ronaldo or Messi.
Ronaldo has won everything he could, all the records.
But whenever he plays for his country, that's something special.
And I think Messi is even better in this.
Messi basically, he doesn't just give his all when he plays.
He goes the extra mile.
He does, I don't think compared to Ronaldo, I don't think Messi cares about the individual trophies or individual accolades.
He wants his country to succeed.
That's why winning the World Cup in Qatar and then winning the South American Championship is the biggest.
Twice, by the way, Messi did it now.
Twice, two times in a row.
I think this is the biggest achievement for him.
He becomes invincible for his country.
Like Maradona, it was the same.
Right?
You know?
And that's why we play football.
That's why we support our teams.
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.
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.
We were actually unlucky.
There is one episode about this which I recorded with my friend Tomas right after this game.
We were actually quite unlucky to walk away from this game with just a draw.
I know there was that chance at the end, but bar this, we were the better team.
We were the superior team.
Not in this Nations League game.
Like we did not deserve to get anything at all from this game.
And if we lost by one or two goals, maybe the scoreline would be a little bit more flattering.
But actually it would not reflect what was happening on the pitch.
Now the scoreline 4-1 much better reflects the whole game.
And I have to say Georgia is not an underdog anymore.
They have an amazing generation right now.
And they beat Portugal at the Euros.
And they played an amazing game against Turkey.
It was the opening game of the Euros.
So of course their football is on the rise.
But still, you know, we have to do so much better.
I'm sorry.
I know it's an away game.
I know.
The first 15 minutes actually were okay-ish from the Czech team.
We were on the ball.
We were holding the ball a lot.
But it was a little bit static, a little bit passive.
Now you could say that's because of the way Georgia played.
They had a, I don't want to say a low block,
but they were not pressing us at all.
They were not pressing us.
They let us play.
And that was their secret plan.
That was their plan.
And they executed their plan really well.
They scored from a penalty.
It was a stupid mistake from Krejci.
I think he slipped and he fouled one of the Georgian players.
Kvichak, Kvaraskylija took the penalty.
Even though he's not known for being an excellent penalty taker,
he did really well there.
It's interesting that obviously Krejci was responsible for two goals,
not just this one, but there was one more when there was a cross.
Was it a corner?
Either a corner or a cross from the left-hand side.
And Krejci just did not time his jump well.
And he missed the header.
And that's why we conceded one of the other goals.
But the point is Ladislav Krejci made two huge mistakes.
And well, obviously he is a young, talented defender,
a center defender with great leadership skills.
He was amazing at Sparta.
But this summer he left for Girona.
He left to play in La Liga,
which is a great achievement for Czech football.
But the problem is he got injured in preseason.
And now he hasn't started the games.
Girona's defense is OK, so they don't have a reason to play Krejci,
even though he is their most expensive signing.
But the issue here is that Krejci does not really play.
So he does not have that confidence.
You need to play games for your club in order to be confident
in an international game, in my opinion.
I know Ladislav Krejci, when they ask him this question,
when a journalist asked him in the post-match interview,
I know he said that this shouldn't matter and this is not relevant.
I disagree.
I think he's saying it because if he said it,
he would admit that obviously he's disappointed and whatnot.
I understand why he's saying what he's saying, but it's not true.
It always matters.
And it's one of the three problems that I have identified,
that we currently have in the Czech national team.
I've identified three huge problems.
Number one problem is that the players that are currently in the national team,
that were in the starting eleven,
and the players that were nominated for this international break,
we've got two games, the second game is against Ukraine this Tuesday,
but the players, a lot of them, they don't have confidence
because they don't play games in their clubs.
They are not match fit.
They don't have match fitness.
What's match fitness?
Match fitness is the kind of fitness you only get from playing games.
You can be fit, you can have good fitness,
if you go to the gym, if you run, if you participate in training sessions,
but it will never replace the experience of playing games.
And you need to play games consistently to have good match fitness.
And definitely a lot of Czech players don't have it.
The players that play in the best teams,
it's only Socek and Sofal who have consistently been playing.
And we don't know what's going to happen there because now at West Ham,
there have been changes, they have a new manager, a new system.
There are some speculations that Socek and Sofal might not even make it
into the starting eleven anymore.
I hope it's not going to be the case.
The thing is, we have Patrik Šyk at Leverkusen, doesn't play.
He is on the bench, right?
The biggest Czech star arguably, he doesn't play.
We have Krejci, doesn't play.
We have, for example, Onze Lingr at Feynorth.
Now he was transferred back to Slavia, but also didn't play.
And I can continue like that.
For example, Hložek didn't play for a long time at Leverkusen.
Fortunately now he was bought by Hoffenheim,
and it looks like that will be a different story there.
Hopefully both, Hložek and there's another Czech player there now,
Hranáč, Robin Hranáč, who came from Victoria Plzeň, center defender.
Hopefully they will both play regularly, regular football,
because only then can the national team benefit.
So this is problem number one for me.
The second problem, and we talked about this before, is lack of creativity.
It was the same issue at the Euros.
Unfortunately we don't have creative players in the Czech squad.
Usually, typically the most creative players are center midfielders, right?
They are the playmakers.
But we have Antonín Barák, who got a red card in the Euros,
and who hasn't exactly been pulling out any trees.
Now he was sent on loan to a Turkish team.
I can't remember the name, but at Fiorentina he wasn't playing.
Again, the same issue as I talked before.
So he is a creative guy.
He's probably the most creative player of all Czech players we currently have.
Tomáš Soček isn't a creative player.
He's a box-to-box midfielder.
I love him, but he doesn't have that skill set.
So you need something like that in your team in order to keep the game,
keep the things ticking, you know.
If you have a system, you need someone who is going to pass the ball to you, right?
You make runs, and that player will pass the ball into that space,
into those pockets, through balls.
The Czech team used to have players like that.
Karol Poborský, Nedvěd, Šmice, all these smart players.
Tomáš Rosický, oh my God, we had plenty of these.
But now, unfortunately, they are few and far between.
We don't have enough of those, and we are suffering as a result.
So in my opinion, what you have to do if you're Ivan Hašek,
the coach of the Czech national team, you have to adapt.
You have to adapt to what you have.
You have to change the system to suit the players you have at disposal.
So simplify it, make it super simple.
Play in a simple way.
If we can't do it, if we don't have creativity, OK, just do long balls.
I'm sorry, but if we have some tall players, I know this is not modern football,
but we can't play.
In this football now, you should just play it out from the back,
and everybody passing the ball, and a little bit of tit-a-tac-a.
If you can't do it, just don't do it.
Play to the player's strengths.
I think Ivan Hašek, what he has to do is he has to sit down
and go through all his options and leave no stone unturned.
He has to try every possible approach, and he has to make it work.
We cannot build our team on creativity because we don't have any.
And there's a third problem, which obviously is connected to all this,
but I think we're not mentally strong enough, and that's really disappointing.
I think we give up easily.
Once we started conceding those goals against Georgia,
it looked like we just crumbled.
And we started hiding, nobody wanted the ball.
Now, you could say this is natural, that happens to everyone, right?
Once you're sort of under pressure, under the cauch,
once a team is getting better of you, you don't have the ball,
you're conceding goals, it will impact everyone's mental strength.
That's true, that's true, but I feel like Czech people,
and specifically Slavic nations, have this issue.
I've seen it many times, that we only play well when we are doing well.
It's the same with the fans.
The fans only come to the stadiums when the team is playing well.
Does it make sense? Does it ring a bell?
Do you have issues like that if you come from Slavic countries?
I heard, for example, that in the Balkan countries this is always an issue.
If you play badly, if you concede a lot of goals, you get depressed there,
and you give up, and you're only half of the player you could be,
maybe even less than that, you're half of the player you could be,
if you were playing well.
Tell me what you think, is this universal, or is this just a Slavic problem,
or is it just a Czech problem?
Let me know, I would like to know, send me an email,
or leave a comment on the YouTube channel, and tell me what you think.
Honestly, I don't want to take away anything from Georgia's performance.
Credit to them, they have an amazing generation.
Players like Kviche Kvaraskalja, their goalkeeper, Mamar Dašvili,
those are just off the top of my head that I can remember,
but I think we will soon remember more of these players.
And honestly, their fans are second to none.
They created an absolutely electric atmosphere at their stadium in Bilisi,
and I can only congratulate them on winning the game,
but I think it was more bad performance of the Czech team
than Georgia's excellent performance.
I'm sorry, this is just the way I see it.
And to be honest, I wish Georgia all the best.
I'm their fan, I know they have a political problem with Russia,
and I hope you guys can make it work in your country
without being dependent on Vladimir Iliich Putin.
It would be great, I know it's not easy, I don't want to go into that,
but I'm still glad that I'm in the Czech Republic, not in Georgia, because of this.
But your football now, I think this is something that can hold you together as a nation, as a glue.
This is an amazing achievement for you, getting to the Euros, playing well,
making it out of your group, excellent, lovely stuff.
Not so lovely for the Czech team, though.
There are, however, four positives that I have identified.
Is that even possible? Four positives out of this shitty performance?
Yeah, it's true, I found four.
The first one is Calvac's goal, which was top-notch, a huge quality, amazing goal.
I think it will be in the highlights of this Nations League round.
It was his first goal, also. It was his very first international goal.
So all things considered, it was a consolation goal, yeah, but credit to Calvac for scoring that.
Then it's Lukáš Provod's form, which has been consistently good.
I think he was the best Czech player. He also saved us from conceding the fifth goal.
Don't get me wrong, he was still average. He was part of that awful performance.
But he was slightly above everyone else, in my opinion,
and he has been consistently playing an amazing football.
He was the best player at the Euros. He's now playing so well in Slavia, as well.
Obviously, Slavia are in Europa League.
I'm not sure that Provod can stay at Slavia for a long time with these sort of performances.
I think he will be noticed by someone.
Right, the third good thing was the fact that all Czech players and the Czech manager spoke the truth in the post-match interviews.
It was Ladislav Krejci, Tomáš Soček, the captain, Ivan Hašek, the manager.
They all said it as it was. They used no clichés, no excuses.
They used the right language. They described the situation as it was.
Ivan Hašek said that it was terrible, that it was horrible.
Tomáš Soček said it must not repeat again.
Even Krejci was very self-critical. He said it as it was, honestly.
The third positive is that it can only get better from now on. It cannot get any worse.
Obviously, in our next game against Ukraine, which will be a home game, as far as I know,
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.
Hopefully, we will get three points because we need them so badly.
I can also talk about some other results if you are interested.
Let me have a quick look. Portugal vs Croatia 2-1.
I think Ronaldo scored one goal in that game and it was his 900th competitive goal.
It was a big occasion. He cried the way he does always.
Why does it always have to be about him? I don't get it.
Scotland vs Poland 2-3. A great win for our Polish neighbours.
Denmark vs Switzerland 2-0. Serbia vs Spain 0-0 in a seemingly one-sided game.
If you look at the stats, there was only one team in the game and that was Spain dominating Serbia.
But credit to Serbia for getting a point from this.
Azerbaijan vs Sweden 1-3. Estonia vs Slovakia 0-1. Slovakia got their first win on Thursday.
Then on Friday, Belgium vs Israel 3-1. France vs Italy 1-3. A big game in which Italians managed to get three points.
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.
Iceland vs Montenegro 2-0. That's a surprise to me. It looks like Iceland are back.
Wales vs Turkey 0-0. That's another interesting result.
Then on Saturday, Germany vs Hungary 5-0. Netherlands vs Bosnia and Herzegovina 5-2.
Oh my god, this group is fun.
Then the Czech group is not so much fun because Georgia vs Czechia 4-1. Ukraine vs Albania 1-2.
Three points for Albania who were excellent at the Euros as well.
So this is a tough group for us. It looks like we will have to work really hard to even stay in this group.
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.
One of them is Declan Rice and the second one is Jack Grealish. And guess what? They both scored.
And also there is a new manager. England have a new manager whose name I can't remember now.
Gareth Southgate is no longer the England manager. So this is a great result.
Your first important game, first win. You want to start like that if you are the England manager.
Then Faraway Island vs North Macedonia 1-1. Armenia vs Latvia 4-1. Moldova vs Malta 2-0.
I think from the important games that's it.
Then on Sunday Croatia vs Poland 1-0. So I think this is the second game already.
So shall I say these results? OK, I'll say these results as well. Croatia vs Poland 1-0. Portugal vs Scotland 2-1.
I think Ronaldo scored again in this game even though he was a substitute.
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.
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.
You can't ask for more. Sweden vs Estonia 3-0. Luxembourg vs Belarus 0-1. Bulgaria vs Northern Ireland 1-0.
Gibraltar vs Liechtenstein 2-0. And that's it. And I think I forgot about some results. Some previous results.
I know San Marino won their first competitive game ever. Something like that. And they beat Liechtenstein 1-0. So congratulations to San Marino.
Okay, I think that's enough about the Nations League. Thank you very much for listening and stay tuned for the Language Corner.
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.
Okay, so when you describe performance, which English idioms can you use? Idioms are like phrases which we use in a language.
And if you look at the individual words in that phrase, they have a different meaning from the meaning they have within that phrase.
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.
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.
Usually this is used as an understatement. You could ask someone about their holiday. You could ask, are you having a good time?
And they might answer, no, actually it's nothing to write home about, which means it's a bit disappointing.
Okay, then I said if you don't play well, you have to fight. You have to pull out all the stops.
So to pull out all the stops, it basically means to do everything possible to achieve success, to do everything, to work harder.
Okay. And then I was talking about Lionel Messi in the international team, in the Argentinian international team.
And what I said is that he goes the extra mile. He sacrifices his own sort of success for the team's success.
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.
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.
You do something extra over what you already do. Okay.
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.
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.
He needs to figure it out. He has to try every possible approach or method to make it work.
So if you try every possible approach or method to achieve something, you leave no stone unturned.
Okay. And then I was talking about Georgia's performance and their fans. I specifically mentioned their fans.
And I said that their fans are second to none. They are amazing. They are excellent fans.
Then I described Kalvach's goal for the Czech Republic team as a top-notch goal. Top-notch is world-class, excellent goal.
And then I also was sort of talking about the positives out of that Czech game.
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.
And I said we have to raise the bar against Ukraine in our next game against Ukraine.
If you raise the bar, it means you basically set a higher standard. You perform better. You raise the bar.
It's not acceptable what happened in that first game. So you have to raise the bar, raise the standards, right?
Play better in that game. I think this comes from athletics. When you are high jumping in athletics, you raise the bar, right?
Then you have a chance to win your, what do you say, race, I guess. Is it a race? Jumping competition.
Whatever. This is not an athletics podcast. So I don't know all the answers. This is a football podcast for English learners.
This is the Footgrish podcast. And if this is your first time listening, please make sure that you subscribe to the Footgrish podcast,
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.
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.
Thank you very much for listening and I will speak to you again soon. Bye for now. Cheers.