It is April 2023 and Dalibor Černý is starting his first derby in his career. In only the eighteenth league match. In a 3:3 draw, he even ordered his first penalty after a foul by Lukáš Masopust on Lukáš Haraslín. His performance impressed, surprised, did not disappoint.
And so he got confidence in the MOL Cup final. Also in this duel, which Slavia managed again at Letná with a ratio of 2:0, there was satisfaction with Černé’s performance. An unexpected hat trick came in the superstructure. Černý was seeded for the third derby in a single month. With a 3:2 triumph, Sparta came significantly closer to the desired title, a penalty in the set-up after a save by stopper Igoh Ogbu and winger Awer Mabil decided.
It must be added that Černý managed all tense duels. After a year, he is getting confidence again, Jan Paták and Jiří Kříž will assist him on the lines, Karel Rouček will tame the emotions between the benches as the fourth referee. Marek Radina and Jiří Pečenka will sit in charge of VAR.
Let us remind you that Ladislav Szikszay (1:1 in Eden with a mass fight at the end) and Ondřej Pechanec (0:0 at Letná with a red card for Angelo Preciad) whistled the league derbies this season. Karel Rouček was in charge of the quarter-finals of the MOL Cup, in which Sparta triumphed after a turnover on the rival’s ground 3:2.
Černý whistled for Sparta and Slavia several times in the current year, for example the losses of both “S” Prague with Pilsen, Slavia’s draw in Zlín or the shootout at Letná with Baník Ostrava (4:3). Now it will be a tense match that could decide the title. Sparta leads the table with four rounds to go by four points.
However, Černý also occasionally made mistakes during the season, for example in August during the opening of the stadium in Hradec Králové. According to the referees’ commission, he erroneously ordered a penalty for Václav Pilař’s fall over České Budějovice’s Pavel Osmančík, from which the “Invaders” increased the final score to 5:1. The video referee Jana Adámková correctly intervened and called on Černé to review the situation, but the head judge mistakenly stood his ground.
