2021/22 mid-season review: FC Slovan Liberec
Welcome to a brand-new Fortuna:Liga series, reviewing each and every team’s 2021 autumn one by one, one day at a time, until the league finally gets back underway on February 5. This is not a particularly new thing or a format, mind — it’s mostly just this Twitter thread moved into the Medium space, containing a couple of new categories without the strict word limit and some more polished graphics from Adam.
Preface for those eagerly awaiting another installment of Power Rankings and MVP race series: this will act as one installment as the clubs are sorted in the exact order they would be if this was Power Rankings, and we’ll delve into my MVP model as well. Only the All-stars will have to wait — those will come after Round 20 (ie. two thirds of the regular season), I reckon. So soon after restart.
I know, awkward. Eight points better off than their Jablonec rivals, yet below them in my Power Rankings? Did I miss them winning four straight or what?
Look, Liberec are on the mend, and have been ever since Luboš Kozel arrived. I’ll give them that. But the mend has mostly occured at the back where they had considerable pedigree to begin with; meanwhile, Slovan wrapped up the fall with the very worst offense over the past 10 games (average of 0,91 xGF).
Same old, same old. And so until Kozel finds a way to stimulate and sustain chance-creation, giving this team at least some semblance of a two-way force to be reckoned with, I can’t possibly rank them higher. I sincerely apologize.
Key numbers
34,6%: Liberec hover around the league average in most metrics, but one they bottom out in… is arguably the most important one of all. Generally, xG bears most value when you use it over a longer stretch (19 games fits the bill), approach it as the key indicator of controlling play and nothing else, and take away penalties to get a clearer picture of how big a gulf in quality of chances created/conceded there is. In the case of Liberec, that gulf reaches the Persian levels. Earning 34,6% of non-penalty xG across two thirds of a regular season is simply never cutting it. Only one team is close (Teplice; 35,2%) and just two other teams — already featured as part of this series — languish in the 30s.
20,13: One big part of the explanation is Slovan’s tendency to try their luck from afar. On a mere 9 occasions this season, their average shooting distance dropped below 20 meters, and the mean average across the 19 games is 20,13m. When you consider that Liberec, at the same time, manage to keep the opponent’s shooters at bay (they shoot from the 3rd longest distance), maybe you should only tune in for their matches if you really love screamers. Although, hold that thought; Slovan have actually bagged only two outside-the-box goals? Both Tupta’s, and one of them from a free kick? Only Karviná and Jablonec (1) have gotten less help from long-rangers? So why do they bother so much in the first place? Oh right, they don’t have other means…
0,7: Speaking of other means: only one of Slovan’s 17 goals arrived via a header (Yusuf’s late winner at Karviná), and it has much to do with their lacking set piece acumen. Only 18,1% of their corners result in a shot (0,7 per game), and for indirect free kicks that percentage drops to 12,3 — both the league’s worst marks. Additionally, finished off corners constitute just 7,5% of all shots produced by Liberec — once again the league’s most marginal portion. But when you think about it, doesn’t it figure? Tell me, who is Slovan’s go-to set piece guy? Exactly. Kozel has seen a rotating cast of corner kick takers come and fail; a list bizarrely including Marios Pourzitidis! To be fair to him, even Christian Frýdek has yet to assist a single chance via a corner, and he’s taken a fair share of them. Filip Havelka has enjoyed the most success lately, and I’m sure you’d never thought of him as a dead ball specialist.
MVP race
You know what I hadn’t realized until I performed the final update of my MVP model? Exactly how valuable under-23 players have been to this team. Youngsters still at least somewhat early in their development are responsible for nearly half of all MVP points earned by Liberec players (49,6%), with only Pardubice being consistently more reliant on U-23 performances (56,3%). Only Sparta have gotten more important goals than Liberec (10) from their younger crop that has, between them, garnered 15 TotW nominations.
A bit of a drawback? That all of Tupta, Havelka, Dominik Plechatý and Jan Matoušek — fairly significant contributors — are here on loan, while Matěj Chaluš finally turned 24 over the winter break, so he won’t chip in anymore.
Most valuable player: Milan Knobloch
Gah. My hottest candidate for “the one I was too low on” snapped up. He’s a richly deserved MVP per eye test too, however, so I’m not going to argue with my model on this. Five team of the week shortlist appearances together with 4 MotM awards voted by spectators are a fair reflection of his game-stealing ability, after all. I’ve complained about goalies sometimes getting rewarded through TotW selections for clean sheets they didn’t really need to work on, but Knobloch is definitely not that case. He got nominated for his exploits in rounds 3, 9, 12, 17 and 19 — conceding one goal from an expected 5,75!
Generally, when you score more goals than only two other teams, you need your goalkeeper to provide consistent quality in order to stay competitive, and that’s exactly what Knobloch has done for Slovan. It’s not like he’s avoided mistakes, but he’s bounced back with a great stretch following his only weaker period of 2021/22 (back-to-back starts vs Ostrava and Slavia when his familiar weakness — mid-range shots and rebound control — let him down).
Wild card: Ľubomír Tupta
The Slovak forward, or a false winger depending on your preference, only joined the party in late August to rack up just 562 minutes, yet all his four goals were of crucial importance to Liberec, so he’s left a huge mark. Only Beauguel, Jurečka, Bassey, Kuchta and Hložek have added more value with their strikes, and all these players have benefitted from a much longer runway. With 7 chance-creating actions, he’s also the most effective regular starter on a 90-minute basis, showcasing fine dribbling ability to slice through defences.
Other notable players
a brief rundown of players who caught my eye for right or wrong reasons
The one I was too high on: Karol Mészáros
I was initially going to highlight Jakub Nečas here, but he left for Brno in complete silence a couple of days ago, so he’s not eligible under my self-imposed rules. Another disappointing, barely used winger it is then.
To be fair to Mészáros, he was coming to play under Hoftych who certainly could’ve used his neatly timed runs in behind the line (as opposed to Kozel, you’d think), but the Slovak speedster spent much of the pre-season on the sidelines, got subbed off twice at half-time during the opening 5-game one-point stretch, then dropped out altogether, scored on his return vs Pardubice, and… disappeared for good, it seems. Since October 16, Mészáros has featured for a mere 52 mins of action, and considering his Č. Budějovice stint too, it now feels like he’ll never be able to stay healthy for an extended period.
The one I was too low on: Christian Frýdek
When he was introduced late in the summer transfer window, seemingly to address the sheer lack of creative spark in the side (and Faško’s inability to hold onto his starting role), I didn’t make much of it. Was I supposed to get excited for a 22-year-old with eleven minutes of top flight experience pretty much forced to skip the entire season of professional football (2020/21)?
I arguably should have been. An average Deník Sport mark of 5,8 suggests some fine consistency — it shares the neigbourhood with Ladislav Almási, Milan Petržela or Marek Matějovský, which is a great company to keep — and his team leads in deep completed passes and smart passes prove he’s indeed bringing something else to the table. With four goal contributions, Frýdek only lags behind Yusuf Helal, and on a somewhat lethargic team with low challenge intensity, he often stands out as a fairly eager ball winner upfront.
The one that got away (from most radars): Filip Havelka
I was unfair to Havelka; I had pigeon-holed him as a rather ‘meh’ holding midfielder, but he’s added some new layers to his game on a fourth loan away from Sparta (and second at Liberec). He leads the team with 8 primary chance-creating actions, he’s assisted — directly or indirectly — on three goals scored (his previous career high was two), and he’s the only Slovan starter capable of complementing Frýdek with his inventive passing. Havelka was already keen on a through pass last year (playing 3rd most accurate ones from among regularly starting CDMs), but he’s grown unarguably more effective.
Havelka has already equalled his last term’s total of five completed smart passes; only that he needed 18 attempts then compared to 9 attempts now.
But is he adequately appreciated? Just one TotW nomination says no.
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