If you’re a sports fan, don’t make any plans for Sunday afternoon, May 26.
From 3:20 p.m., the match for bronze at the hockey championship in Prague will be played.
At 16.00, the last three football matches of the league extension for the title kick off, two of which will also be played in the capital.
From 8:20 p.m., more than two weeks of hockey glory in the Czech Republic will end with the final match.
If you know the realities of sports, you can guess what can happen. Although the Czechs no longer belong to the absolute hockey elite, in a one-off tournament at home they can easily push their way into the medal fights, as they did nine years ago. The football league table, on the other hand, suggests that the title can be decided until the very end.
It is probably not far from the truth that now football fans, regardless of club affiliation, wish: Let everything be decided before the final round and I don’t have to have a dilemma about which sport I prefer.
Instead of prayers, malice and rage are spreading on social networks. It is rolling on the umbrella LFA, which fit the league finish between the fixed duels for the hockey medals.
At first glance, it is seriously a matter of mistrust, a closer look is no longer so clear.
But in order, the UEFA deadline speaks fundamentally to the creation of plans.
It seems silly to put one of the bikes in the Wednesday holidays of May 1st or 8th. UEFA has blocked the aforementioned dates for the semi-final duels of the European Cups.
“UEFA wants it to have the highest possible viewership. He doesn’t want people to be distracted by domestic competitions. We have the numbers and more people watch the Czech League than the Champions League,” LFA Executive Director Tomáš Bárta explained, for example, in the Nosiči vody podcast published by Seznam Zprávy. He spoke in a similar vein a few days later to Sport.cz.
On a separate topic, it would probably issue what the LFA would actually be threatened with for the violation, but let’s assume that we live in a civilized country, and not somewhere in the East, where international conventions are observed only when it is convenient.
Maneuvering space is rapidly reduced. In essence, UEFA sends the creators of the league calendars a pre-filled crossword in which only a few letters can be added. League matches are played on Wednesdays or other times of the week, but usually there are various postponements, pre-plays and post-plays.
In addition, most of the free center in the spring is occupied by the domestic cup, which was complicated by the quarter-final fog in Jablonec. By the way, even because of her, it is still not clear when the final will take place…
Overall, after the extension of the league with the extension, there were more duels, free dates remained. The time delay with hockey could have been avoided if the league had started a week earlier. But would you dare push for an earlier start after December, when football was having a hard time recovering from the snowstorms?
The league is rushing, not needlessly pausing. And anyway, he doesn’t have many opportunities to finish before the end of May.
No, this is not a defense of the LFA. More like an explanation that you can’t kill her with one blow. But the management of league football needs a little more foresight, more precise communication and perhaps even a little more empathy.
The game model of the superstructure was lit on the official website of the competition until this week, where, for example, the date Saturday 25 May was attached to the 5th round of the superstructure. But rather than specific days, it was about the composition of the matches and the time frame, which somehow forgot to update.
And according to comments on social networks, some fans have already arranged their program accordingly…
It is also a little strange that LFA was the first to inform about the exact dates of the extension, but on its channels Sparta, Slavia and Plzeň – i.e. the most influential clubs who already know the final position after the regular season.
The timetable (not only) for the superstructure is created by LFA in cooperation with clubs, broadcasters or the police. In the final, it doesn’t matter who had the main say, but in the end, the fan will pay for it, who will probably have to choose between football and hockey on the last weekend of May.
As a compromise and a more friendly gesture to the audience, it was offered to play the final round of the group for the title on the last Saturday in May from 18.00.
We don’t have to pretend that the fan base would approve. It would invite worldly celebration. Rather, I am referring to the fact that the Czech hockey players, in the event of progressing to Saturday’s semi-finals, would choose an earlier and more favorable game from 2:20 p.m. as the home team. And the collision would suddenly not be so striking.
On the last Sunday in May, the stadiums in Libni, Letná and Vršovice will be full, but people will still have the feeling that the collision of major sporting events could have been resolved better. At least a little bit.
