Arrival of players | Video: Luboš Kurzweil
“I am satisfied with the visit and how everything worked out. The weather also worked out for us. I hope people were happy and enjoyed the match. Of course, the result will still be possible,” said Marek Mařík even at a time when 0:4 from the first half shone on the scoreboards.
The subsequent honorable success from the workshop of the summer reinforcements from Velké Hamr was a well-deserved reward for all those who at least slightly wished for the clearly weaker home team in the match. “You could see the quality on the side of Slavia. When they get a chance, they score a goal, while we struggle with low productivity even in the third league competition and we go crazy for a goal,” the long-time first man of Venetian football looked back.
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During the televised match, he was understandably one of the central faces of non-football events. Before kick-off, he handed over the commemorative jersey to Slavia’s fitness coach Martin Třasák, who also played for Venetian football in the past. At halftime, together with the mayor of the city of eight thousand, he gave an interview to the camera.
When Sparta comes, we’ll catch everything
After the match, he could declare the event a successful one, although he already had some suggestions for improvement for the next time. “You can always do something differently. The lesson for us is that there was a lot of beer on one side of the stadium, less on the other. The next time we get Sparta, we’ll catch it all,” smiled Marek Mařík, who, as a fan of staples, had a big dream come true with a mutual match.
What was the most difficult part of the preparations? According to Marek Mařík, it was three weeks of intense collective work. “They are three written A-four sheets of tasks, who has to do what. Provide parking areas for cars with fans to enter and any comfort for them, so that they don’t stand in three rows behind each other and everyone can see and be comfortable. This is due to the work of the boys around football and city employees. Without their help, it could not have turned out the way it did. It all clicked. The words of praise from people who were here from Slavia and the surrounding area make us happy and give us motivation for further work,” explained the fifty-one-year-old Marek Mařík, who joined the football club more than twenty years ago.
From hockey goalie to football boss
The interesting thing is that he does not come from Venice at all, but from Písek in South Bohemia, and a completely different sport brought him to the Jizera. “It’s been some 28 years since I went to Venice for hockey, because it was actually my number one sport. I had football as an accessory. When my contract in Písek, where I was in the second league, ended, I was approached by Venice if I wanted to come here. I nodded that I would go to the season and see. After all, it was a distance, an unknown place. And from one season, he is already 28 years old,” recalled the former hockey goalkeeper in the 27th episode of the Divizní hovada football podcast.
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It was a short walk from the winter stadium to the football stadium – exactly as it is in Venice and in reality. “When I finished playing hockey sometime around 2000, when I didn’t get along a little with the management there, I focused on football. I played for the B team for a while and we gradually joined the management of the club sometime from 2003 and we actually started doing football from the peak, when it was on the verge of collapse in the B class, there was no money. We started in our infancy and in those 21 years they got it to where it is now and it ended with that amazing match with Slavia,” explained Marek Mařík.
They were lucky
He would like to experience a similar peak, as his club did on the last day of October, to anyone playing at the amateur level. “This year turned out completely unexpectedly for us. It started with promotion to the ČFL from second place. That we got to where we got in the MOL Cup is a matter of luck and a little bit of going against that. We approach the MOL Cup matches with all seriousness, the boys have some kind of reward for progress. It is money spent from the club coffers, which is not counted on much. But it may happen that one day it will bring you that reward, candy in the form of the third round, when our best clubs already enter the competition. Then you’ll be lucky enough to get Slavia or Sparta, even though we’ve been unlucky in the past,” he dreamed, agreeing that in addition to publicity, the club can also improve its budget with a similar match. By the way, the city of Venice itself participates in more than thirty percent of this, which generally supports sports in the long term and above standard. “I hope that when we add up all the pluses and minuses, there will be something left and it will be the reward for it all,” added Marek Mařík.
Money, however, was on the sidelines in the case of the match of the century…
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