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How did Victoria Plzeň manage to get a point against Eintracht Frankfurt in their opening game of this year's Europa League?
Did the Plzeň players believe what they had achieved?
What is Plzeň's European DNA?
And what do we have to be careful about when pronouncing the words unbelievable and unimaginable?
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
Depends on which time of the day you are listening.
My name is Denik Lukas and this is the Footglitch Podcast.
Hopefully your favorite English learning podcast about football.
And today I am joined by my friend Tomas.
Welcome back to the podcast, Tom.
Good morning, Denik, and thank you.
Welcome back. Tomas, I'm going to start by asking you this question here.
Do you drink beer?
Yeah, I guess almost everyone who lives in Czech drinks beer.
So same for me and I love it.
Instead of blood, we have beer in our veins and arteries.
True.
What's your favorite beer, Tomas?
I would say nowadays I really like Gratigast.
Or the most traditional one, which is Pilsner.
Exactly, Pilsner. That's why I was asking you this.
Because we are going to talk about Plzeň today.
Which is the city where Pilsner Urquell is made.
The most common Czech beer, no, not most common, the most famous Czech beer, I would say.
So we're going to talk about Pilsner and their game in Europa League.
Because it was quite surprising.
So did you watch this game, Tomas?
I did. I watched the game and it was a great game.
I think everyone who is following Czech football and how the Czech teams play in the Europa League,
we have to be proud of Pilsner, Nozomislavia and Nozomzbarta, how they played.
Actually, before the game, I was quite skeptical about Plzeň vs Frankfurt.
Because Frankfurt is one of the top German teams.
I think they lost only one game in this season against Dortmund.
And a couple of years ago they also won the Europa League themselves.
Not a bad team, right?
And when you compare the annual budget of those teams, it's like incomparable.
And a tough place to go to for Pilsner to start their Europa League campaign.
So away from home, everybody expected a bettering.
I don't know about you, but I thought Pilsner would lose.
But did you know Tomas that they have been unbeaten for about 26 matches in normal time?
I have read this morning actually.
I didn't want to believe it, so I checked it twice.
Because for me it was almost unbelievable.
And I think the last game they lost against Fiorentina in overtime.
It was in overtime.
I think they were down to 10 men or something like that.
There was some kind of weird circumstance as well.
So it's quite unimaginable.
I think we still cannot believe it much as Czechs.
But they are a European giant now.
Because what happened in this game, the biggest kind of surprising thing was that in the 85th minute they were 3-1 down.
They were trailing 3-1 and it looked like the game was over.
But somehow they got a point in the end.
There is something very special about Pilsen in Europa League.
Very special.
I've heard that they have a European DNA.
So there is some special DNA inside the team.
When they play really tough and difficult games against European giants or teams with way higher budget than actually they have.
And they can still beat them or they can play equally to them.
Just a big surprise.
And also that they are still rebuilding the team.
So the general manager, Mr. Koubek, he lost two best players from last season.
Hranáč and Hori.
Hori went to Slavia and Hranáč went to Hoffenheim.
And he is still rebuilding it and they are still there.
And yet they are getting results.
And now they are in this league stage of the Europa League with the new system.
Playing their first game.
Everybody expecting them to lose.
I'm going to read the teams they have to face.
These are the teams they are facing in this league stage of the Europa League.
Frankfurt, Ludogorec Razgrad, Pauk Soluň, Real Sociedad, Dynamo Kiev, Manchester United, Underlegs Brussels and Atletico Bilbao.
So tough teams.
Yeah.
And I can't wait to the Old Trafford game.
Wow. Yeah, that's going to be massive.
That's going to be a home game.
It's not going to be at the Old Trafford.
It's going to be at home, actually in Pilsen.
It will be in Pilsen?
In Struncovi Sadie.
Ah, okay.
What a shame.
What a pity for Pilsen.
True.
But it will be great for the Pilsen fans.
But going back to this game.
So I heard from people, even ex-footballers like Vaclav Kadlet said it on his podcast that by the time they were losing 3-1, they had switched off the TV.
They stopped watching.
I've heard it from numerous people.
Were you one of those or were you watching like me?
No.
Were you watching till the end?
I was watching.
I have to admit that I was not as focused as before.
Me too.
So I didn't expect that they can...
Pull it off.
Yeah.
They can improve themselves so much.
But on the other hand, they have this special essence.
They have this lion heart.
Lion heart.
It's like a lion heart.
You know, when they are beating, when they are facing some giants, some European giants, and it's like 85 minutes and they are still losing 3-2-1.
They don't give up.
They keep going.
They have self-belief.
But Tomas, I heard from the interviews after this game that they didn't believe it themselves.
Apparently, they thought the game was just going to...
They just didn't want to concede more goals.
I think Schultz, Pavel Schultz said it.
Yeah.
And apparently, after the game, in the dressing room, you can imagine a common scene would be to celebrate this.
You score two goals in the last five minutes to get a draw at Frankfurt.
That's amazing.
But apparently, what happened in the dressing room instead was that they were staring at each other in disbelief.
This is what they said.
They didn't celebrate.
They were just staring at each other like, what just happened?
They couldn't believe it.
So they have a new player.
I think also the goals which they scored, they were kind of surprising.
Quite incredible at that point.
The 2-3 goal was scored by Prince Ado.
It's a new signing for Poznan.
Prince.
So, Victoria has their Prince now.
I think he played for Krivbas, a Ukrainian team.
And he's very good.
I like this player.
And then the equaliser was scored by a player that is a centre defender and doesn't even go into the six-yard box or 18-yard box for set pieces normally.
And he hasn't scored a goal in years.
Jemelka.
So it was a mistake of a goalkeeper.
But it was such a funny circumstance because Jemelka, of all people, Jemelka scored the equaliser.
Yeah, a bit lucky, right?
A bit lucky.
What do you think? Was it lucky?
Were they lucky or what happened there?
Absolutely.
I think they were lucky.
And the first goal which should have scored, it was an amazing, amazing goal.
A long range drive.
Yeah.
It was so, when you look at it, it looks so easy, so easy to score the goal like this.
But it's...
I think it was very important because they realised that they can play an equal game against such an opponent like Frankfurt.
And at the end, they just didn't give up.
They played until the real end of the game.
And they were lucky.
And also I think that Frankfurt somehow lost concentration a little bit.
Yeah, focus.
They were not that aggressive anymore.
Complacent, I thought.
They basically thought it was over.
And sometimes it happens, right?
Your arrogance gets the better of you and then this is what breaks you in the end, right?
True, true.
Yeah, you should never underestimate a game like that, honestly.
Yeah.
The question is whether Palisagny will be able to keep all the players in the team for the next matches.
Like Schultz, for example, I've heard that he might go away.
Yeah, he's gonna go.
He's now in the national team as well.
He scored two goals.
He's the star of the Czech League.
I cannot see how he can stay at Palisagny, honestly.
He will be there for this autumn, in my opinion, but in winter, I guarantee you, he's gone.
Okay.
Yeah.
So going back to my question.
So they were lucky, but you know, when I say lucky, it sounds like they didn't deserve it.
But I think they did because if you look at the stats, Tomas, if you look at the stats, you know, the shots on target are 6-6.
It's just that Frankfurt has more shots off target, 9-2, but shots on target, 6-6.
Possession, 63% for Frankfurt, 31% for Prozac.
It's not too bad either.
I think it was acceptable and expectable.
Sorry.
I think that everyone expected that this will be this, this possession ratio will be like that.
Yeah.
So it's not a big surprise.
But I have to admit that I really like also the Frankfurt player, Ektyke, I think that's his name.
He's the young guy who scored the first goal.
And he played really well as well.
Yeah.
And it was amazing to watch him, how he can control the ball, how fast he is, how he reached the game.
And I think also Jemelka did a great job when he was defending him because he, I think he will be one of the stars in Europa League, this Ektyke.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I remember the commentator made a joke or something that when this player, Ektyke, committed a foul, the commentator said that this was not done by the Ektyke.
It seemed very funny when he said it.
Probably it's not funny now, but...
So that's how you can remember his name now.
Exactly.
Anyway, Czech teams in Europe this season, incredible.
The coefficient, the UEFA country ranking.
For some reason we are in the lead for this year.
We have over 6,000, we have 6,300 points and the second best Portugal have 5,800 points.
And the winner, excuse me, I'm losing my voice because of this, I cannot believe it.
The winner of this year, actually the first two places will get an extra Champions League spot.
And last year it was Germany and Italy.
And of course it's not going to be us because the tough games are yet to come, right?
So we are so good because we play a lot of qualifiers.
But in those qualifiers, out of 26 games, we have 21 wins, only two defeats.
It's incredible.
What is going on? Pinch me Tomáš.
I cannot believe it.
Yeah, we should enjoy it.
While it lasts.
I don't want to play it down, but honestly, how long can this last?
Until we play Manchester United and teams like that, I think.
But I think you mentioned that the next game, Palazan will play against Ludo Goretz.
And then there is Pauk Solu, Real, Suceida.
Ludo Goretz was beaten by Slavia this week as well.
Yeah. So it's definitely beatable.
Your team, you are a Slavia fan, you are not a Palazan fan.
You might be a Palazan beer fan.
But I still thought you would be a good person to talk to about this one.
I was watching it definitely.
Actually, I was not watching the Slavia game against Ludo Goretz.
You see.
I prefer to watch Palazan.
You are becoming a Palazan fan now.
And so what do you think?
How will Palazan perform in this group?
Because there are a lot of teams that are definitely beatable.
Yes, but remember the list of the opponents I read you.
So they are going to face each of these only once.
And I think it really comes down to this Ludo Goretz game,
because it's the next game, it's a home game.
It should be the easiest opponent of the rest, from what I can see.
Maybe you could argue that Dynamo Kiev are not at their best
and they are not playing in Kiev, right, because of the war situation.
So maybe they can be beaten as well.
But then it's going to be quite tough.
So I think if they get three points from the Ludo Goretz game,
they have a really good chance of progressing.
If they don't, I'm a little bit skeptical, as I was at the start of the season.
But this point from Frankfurt, that's a real morale boost, right?
That's a real...
That's something that nobody, I think, expected, not even Palazan themselves,
from the interviews I heard.
So, you know, onwards and upwards.
Yeah.
As we had discussed at the beginning of our podcast,
that Palazan has this special DNA for matches in Europa League.
And also those games are so much different compared to the matches in Czech League.
So it looks that Palazan could really surprise also teams like Real Sociedad or Kiev,
like you mentioned, on Anderlecht, Brussels.
So now I'm actually more optimistic.
When I saw the game with Frankfurt...
You're right.
And they were not the worst team. They were not...
And you know, Tomas, what I thought as well,
to me it looked like they are giving Palazan a lot of respect as well.
Like really, it looked like they were waiting for what Palazan would show.
So it seemed to me like they have made a name for themselves,
Victoria Palazan, because last year they lost to Fiorentina in the quarter-final.
So that was an incredible achievement.
And they didn't concede many goals as well.
This one they conceded three, but they scored three as well.
So no problem there.
Yeah.
Okay. I guess that's it for today, Tomas.
I just wanted to keep it short because I think this is a huge achievement for Palazan
and for Czech football.
And it was so surprising that I thought it deserved an episode of the Footgridsch podcast,
a separate one.
So we've done it. Thank you very much.
Thank you for having me here. It was a pleasure as always.
Yeah. Likewise, thank you for accepting my offer to be on the podcast.
And I hope to speak to you again soon.
Speak to you soon. Hopefully after Slavia game.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Language Corner.
As you guys know, I'm an English teacher.
And that is why I have this segment, the Language Corner.
This is where I do my job.
This is where I try to teach you something.
And this time I would like to take a look at two adjectives.
One of them is unbelievable and the other is unimaginable.
So basically I was talking about the fact that Victoria Pozen have been unbeaten for 26 matches in Europe.
Right. Last season they played in the Conference League.
This season they are in the Europa League.
And in the normal time they have been unbeaten for 26 games.
Yeah. They lost to Fiorentina in the extra time.
And Tomas said that he read about this in the morning and he said,
for me, it was almost unbelievable.
And we are looking at the word unbelievable.
It's quite a long word.
It has a lot of syllables. Un-be-lie-ver-ble.
Five different syllables.
So when it comes to these long words or any words in English,
you always have to identify the main stress in order to pronounce it correctly.
And of course it's hard if you have to think about it.
So the best way is if you can follow your intuition.
Or if you hear the language,
if you have heard this word so many times that it has become natural for you.
That is the best approach if you can do that.
But going back to the word unbelievable.
The stress is on leave.
That is the syllable that is the most prominent one.
That's the one that sounds the loudest.
Every word has one main syllable that is like that.
We don't say unbelievable. We don't say un-be-lie-ver-ble.
We don't say un-be-lie-ver-ble.
No, we say un-be-lie-ver-ble.
So that's that.
And also notice how we don't say un-be-lie-ver-ble.
No, ble. At the end.
And similarly, I responded to what Tomas said by saying it's quite unimaginable.
A similar word, right?
Unimaginable.
Ma. Ma. The syllable ma is stress.
And again, we don't say unimaginable.
We say unimaginable.
A lot of people, a lot of English learners, for example,
make a mistake when they pronounce the word comfortable.
They say cumf-table.
No, it's not a table. It's not able.
It's not able. It's able.
Yeah, if it's an adjective that is long, it's almost always able.
Unbelievable. Unimaginable.
So there are more words in this episode which had the able suffix, beatable.
Tomas used the word beatable, for example.
OK, guys, I hope this has been useful.
Thank you very much for watching.
Thank you very much for listening.
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