The Czech national team will play the penultimate preparatory match before the European Championship on June 7 against Malta in Grödig during the training camp in Austria. They will have a camp in nearby Schladming, where they will prepare for the championship in Germany from June 2 to 9. The national team reported about it on the FAČR website.
The national team has already announced that it will play the Euro warm-up on June 10 against North Macedonia in Hradec Králové. The management of the national team was looking for the second June opponent for a long time and finally decided on the not very attractive Malta.
“The wish of our team was to play a match not far from where we will be at the camp, so that we have as much time as possible to prepare before the Euros. That is why we turned down several leading European teams, who in turn clearly insisted on playing at home.” said FAČR technical director Erich Brabec.
“Individual teams have a clear idea of their preparations and priorities before the start of the European Championship. Therefore, more than ever, the preferences of the coaches, the place of the match, deciding whether you want to play against a participant in the championship, the date enter into the negotiations. From the beginning, we had instructions from the coaches that for them the priority is the venue of the match and this request was finally fulfilled,” said FAČR chairman Petr Fousek.
Together with Czechoslovakia, the national team has so far played 12 matches against Malta with a balance of nine victories and three goalless draws. The last time they came across the currently 172nd FIFA ranked team was at the end of May 2016, also in preparation for the European Championship, and crushed the outsider 6-0.
“We have a given preparation plan in which a match on a given date fits in, not far from where we will be preparing for the championship. Moreover, Malta has achieved good results recently. They managed to draw with Slovenia during the last international match, they beat an improving Luxembourg last year, before drew with Greece and beat Israel,” said coach Ivan Hašek, who took over the team in January from Jaroslav Šilhavé and led it to 2:1 wins in the first two preparatory matches in Norway and Armenia a few days ago.
The national team has already announced that it will be going to a camp in Austria for the Euros, but it has only now announced the exact location of the camp. Schladming is located approximately 100 kilometers south of Salzburg in the federal state of Styria.
The team will be staying at the Falkensteiner Hotel, from where they will be heading out to the nearby pitch. “We visited the site with the coaches and we will have ideal conditions for preparation there,” Brabec declared.
After returning from the training camp in the Czech Republic and general practice, the team will have a short break in North Macedonia and will travel to Germany for the championship on June 13. Five days later, Hašek’s men will enter the tournament with a match against Portugal in Leipzig. In the group, they will then face Georgia and Turkey in Hamburg.
Tags: Czech Republic opponent prepare Euro Austria face Malta
