“I hope that we have an attractive season ahead of us and that there will be goals. The change was big, eight guys left and with them the goals. But we have guys who can also score them,” said the club’s general manager Martin Straka at Tuesday’s press conference. “If we finish seventh and advance to the playoffs, to the quarterfinals, I think we will all be satisfied,” added sports manager Tomáš Vlasák.
Defenders Peter Čerešňák, Jakub Kindl, Dominik Graňák, Viktor Lang and forwards Michal Bulíř, Gustaf Thorell, Filip Přikryl, Martins Dzierkals, Pavel Musil and Jan Dufek left the team. In the case of Čerešňák and Bulíř, he thus lost a key back and the most productive player of the past season.
In their place came defenders Petr Zámorský, Jan Piskáček, Michal Houdek, Marek Baránek, Martin Vitaloš and forwards Samuel Bitten, Zdeněk Sedlák, Aleksi Rekonen, Kryštof Hrabík and Nicolai Meyer.
“Slightly different players have arrived and we will bet on teamwork,” said Vlasák, adding that he expects productivity especially from foreigners Rekonen and Meyer, who together with Tomáš Mertl should form a strong elite formation.
Vlasák also believes in new captain Jan Schleiss and Ludwig Blomstrand. “There has to be more of those guys. We’ve always had one or two dominant leaders. We don’t have that now and we bet on the fact that we should spread it out. And even the guys who said they didn’t have that much space, now it’s up to them to show that they can also drag down productivity,” said ČTK.
In the preparation, Pilsen played eight matches, in which they won four. “The preparation fulfilled what we wanted. The beginning was not good at all, but that went hand in hand with the fact that the staff went through a big change. But over time, the things we want started to appear. As a result, the plan began to be fulfilled in the game as well, and I believe that we will transfer that to the competition and we will be unpleasant for any team,” said coach Václav Baďouček.
