2022/23 mid-season review: FC Slovan Liberec
Welcome to the 3rd edition of my FORTUNA:LIGA mid-season review. Over the years, I’ve moved from Twitter to Medium, and now I’ve got nowhere further to move — just tweaking the format a little bit to account, among other things, for one big question ahead of the spring and a welcome update to Jakub’s unique pre-season standings projection. Enjoy!
One big question going into 2023
Will Liberec finally find a way to evolve under Luboš Kozel?
Luboš Kozel has a reputation of a possession-loving coach stretching all the way back to his Dukla days, yet his Baník Ostrava and Slovan Liberec sides have been notoriously unable to build play through the centre, doing little in possession. Luboš Kozel kind of looks and talks like a smart coach, yet he increasingly doesn’t make an actual impression of a smart coach willing to learn. His teams have the same flaws and it’s all the more inexcusable after a fall when Liberec, on paper, fielded one of its top teams in recent years.
Throughout last season, I lamented over Liberec not controlling the game flow, making for a bad combination outfit relying on crosses, etc. But fine, that was still Hoftych’s doing to an extent. Now this… this is purely Kozel’s doing — and what do you think has changed? Despite losing their most frequent crosser (Koscelník), Liberec remain ineffective in gaining the penalty area via passing (their penetration was and is 2nd worst). Their xG share in positional attacking (through build-up) remains stuck at 14th. Their overall non-penalty xG share is no longer the worst of the worst, cool, but it isn’t much better either — going from 34,6% to a still-woeful 41,5%. And they’ve actually produced a smaller portion of shots over this fall than last. I wasn’t necessarily expecting Liberec to make strides, but this…?
Generally, I haven’t seen (m)any rumours about Kozel being on a hot seat, but it ought to be getting there. Everytime he needs an injection of security — like during the four-game winless run of three losses — he somehow gets it, with all the timely Slovan victories standing as (at least mild) xG upsets.
Key numbers
45,6%: It’s hard to understate the impact Van Buren’s departure will most likely have on Liberec’s ability to finish and create high-end chances. Unless Rabušic acquires a new pair of legs or Rondić/Kozák break out without any prior indication, there’s just no replacing of MvB’s knack for getting in the right positions. Heck, we are talking about a striker who’s produced a shot in every game but one (when he was stationed at right wing) and hit the target with more than half of his attempts (56,3%). Since FORTUNA:LIGA inexplicably let the Teplice-Liberec game go ahead in a fog so thick Wyscout couldn’t feasibly tag the match, I can only work with data for 15 Liberec games, but the 16th would hardly make a difference. Van Buren has produced 8 non-penalty goals from 7,31 individual xG — so virtually no overperformance there — and his threat generation (including shot assists) represents a staggering 45,6% of the entire team NPxG. With all of this coming from open play, Kozel is facing his greatest challenge yet.
10,78: Intensity of the ball remains an issue for Liberec. Going by PPDA — looking at passes allowed before producing a defensive action to intervene — Slovan were 14th last term (9,66 passes) and currently sit 15th (10,78), at the same time producing the least ball recoveries in the final third via both positional play and ground duel engagement. The team sharing the league basement with Liberec on all three counts? You guessed it, Dynamo České Budějovice. What makes matters even worse from Slovan’s perspective is their terrible balance between losing and recovering the balls (again second worst). On average, as much as 23,9% conceded possession by them occurs in Liberec’s defensive third — the highest percentage of all.
2,86: Not enough words have been produced about Slovan’s goalkeeping keeping them in games they should have no business hanging in, with Olivier Vliegen bizarrely receiving more plaudits for his performances off the pitch (in TV Nova studio during the World Cup) than on it. For one, Vliegen is one of the most assured goalkeepers I have ever seen on Czech fields. His punch is resolute and strong, his rushes off the line well timed. Secondly, the Belgian’s shot stopping — still the most important skill I’m repeatedly told — leaves very little to be desired, as well. While he’s never hit the height of his opening heroics vs Sparta, eight more of his efforts qualify as “strong” in my books (preventing at least 0,3 goals by xCG), which gives you a sense of rather stunning consistency for a first-year starter. All put together, Slovan are plus-2,86 in prevented goals — 2nd league-wide.
Most valuable player
The following few paragraphs will reference my own MVP model, introduced initially here, and further enriched for this season. I now divide chance-creating actions to primary and secondary (assigning different value to both), also credit creators for chances left unfinished not by their own fault, and instead of “low recovery” introduce more cherry-picked defensive metrics, “backstopping action” (preventing a chance from developing, be it via interception, duel or block) to go with “bypassed for a chance” (an error not punished by scoring). The space for goal-creating actions has been expanded to as many as three non-assist contributions to be appreciated by the model — as long as they truly contribute.
Remember Christian Frýdek owning Sparta in the opener, then following up with 4 more Team of the Week nominations and 2 more man-of-the-match awards from Deník Sport inside the first eight rounds, with a future return to Sparta looking like a question of when, not if? Yeah, good times.
Since then… nothing. Frýdek has swiftly gone from an average Deník Sport mark of elite 6,75 in the first 8 to a below-par 4,71 in the remaining 8. In the first five rounds, in fact, he’s notched 100% of his points (1+2) and 4/6s of his other goal contributions, eventually losing his starting spot in late October. He’s still capable of producing danger (he wouldn’t have led the next best Liberec man by fourteen chance-creating actions otherwise), but the effectivity and execution has eluded him while Višinský looks inspired.
Why hadn’t Mick van Buren overtaken him then? Largely because 9 goals look amazing, but the hat trick against Teplice doesn’t do him much favour in my model’s eyes since he was only extending a lead — basically beating a dead horse. That’s very Tecl-esque and also the main reason why he’s only responsible for adding 4,28 expected points to Liberec’s gain per CSfotbal model, which works out to a mere 0,475 EPA per goal. Roman Květ, fellow member of the nine-goal club, adds about 0,3 points more per his one goal.
Wild card
Vliegen feels like a solid bet to run away with the MVP mantle for his adventurous ball-catching (leading to a record 12 back-stopping actions for a goalkeeper) and occasional game stealing, but we’ve talked about him already, so let’s zero in on someone who you may have forgotten about. A recovered Mohamed Doumbia got injured very early on in the season, but not too early for him to potentially not factor into the race later in the season. Doumbia managed to contribute to four goals in just 275 minutes (!), helped to create 7 more chances and got two 8s from Deník Sport as well as a pair of TotW nominations for good measure. The scene is set for the silky midfield tweener to return with a bang and make up the lost ground.
Pre-season projection update
The projection is based on team quality assessed by Elo rating system. The system optimally weighs past results, taking strength of schedule and home field advantage into consideration. MOL Cup is also simulated. The probability of qualifying for UEFA competitions takes both the league and the cup into account.
The mushy middle of the current FORTUNA:LIGA table is a tricky field to navigate. On the one hand, Sigma Olomouc (4th) are headed to European cups; on the other hand, they are just 4 points away from the relegation group. Similarly, Liberec are borderline relegation play-off candidates (5 points off) by underlying numbers, while still being closer to Sigma (3 pts). Considering that, the 7% chance of sneaking into Europe (despite knocking the very same Sigma out of MOL Cup) seems almost too marginal, while I would argue that the 99% chance of surviving is a bit too rich for a team with one of the tougher home schedules (Slovácko, Olomouc, Bohemians, Slavia, Sparta don’t scream like many points, certainly not easy ones). In my eyes, Slovan should simply be leaning way more into the both worlds whereas the model — not accounting for the flurry of key winter departures, to be fair to it — currently sees them as the perfect example of mediocrity.
My bold prediction’s status: In process.
Olivier Vliegen was supposed to beat Milan Knobloch’s longest streak without conceding (254 mins) in his first year as a FORTUNA:LIGA starter, and he does carry a load of promise into the spring, truth be told. Despite having to wait till R8 for his first clean sheet, he’s now got the joint 3rd-highest total of them (4) and has already crawled over the 200-minute bar once, something only three goalkeepers of teams outside the Big 3 have managed (Laštůvka, Trefil, Hanuš). Can he get this one over the line? I am certainly hopeful, along with 7 betters as part of our little prediction game.
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