2022/23 mid-season review: FK Pardubice
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
Can they turn an actual home advantage into an actual advantage?
On their return to the Czech top flight, Pardubice were a force to reckon with inside their adopted fortress. They didn’t lose to either Slavia, Sparta or Plzeň (3:0!) at Ďolíček, only getting outshot by 4/16 opponents all season.
Last term, they got off to a slow start but eventually recovered, losing just two of their last 10 home xG battles and channeling their home strength to kickstart a very strong finish in a dominant victory vs Teplice (R29).
This season, their previous Ďolíček mojo has completely vanished.
While they were already credited for a concerning 41,7% of all goals in their home 2021/22 games, now the percentage reads an astonishing 27,8%. A considerably greater xG share (39,9%) tells us Pardubice may be in for a lucky break or two, but as long as they are bringing home a mere 0,38 points per away game, the bump has got to be more pronounced.
Now, what a story it would be for Pardubice to get the lifeline at a long-awaited home ground named after an inspiring, brave history figure?
Key numbers
-11: Pardubice need to do more heavy-lifting inside the first 45 mins. In terms of goal differential, they are minus-11, only holding a lead at half-time once all season (when they surprised Liberec with a late 1st-half surge in R3) and sharing the league basement with Slovácko. In terms of xG, they are also bottom three with minus-7, outdoing only five opponents. What seems especially significant: three of those positive first halves resulted in a victory. That’s 100% of all Pardubice wins being preceded by a strong(ish) first half; there’s an obvious psychological advantage to it, if nothing else. What’s curious is that Pardubice earn more than a half of their sum xG in opening halves (50,2%), which can only be said about four other teams. At the same time, though, they boast a collective shooting percentage of an embarrassing 27,6%, failing to test the opposing goalkeeper even once on nine occasions. They’ve put together a pair of 3+game stretches of such inept 1st-half finishing, so it’s no wonder you see “16” on the graphic above (even though I don’t judge “finishing” strictly by shooting percentage).
11: In the brief history of tracking this, I don’t remember a goalkeeper leading his team with the most aerial duels won inside the penalty box, yet here we are. Jakub Markovič has successfully claimed 11 balls while under pressure (attempting to do so 12 times) and remains to be the only Pardubice guy in double digits. Tomáš Vlček lags behind with 8 but also a 29,6% success rate, which is brutal for a centre back. This should never be possible on a bad team that faces no shortage of crosses. Staněk is very active in this regard, too, and plays on a more dominant side, yet even he isn’t leading. While Staněk’s trips off the line actually represent a mean of Plzeň’s dominance over their most vulnerable area (0 conceded goals from head shots as the only team in the league), Markovič’s trips rather speak to Pardubice’s inability to defend it and the need for more damage control (8).
17,04–17: When Radoslav Kováč took charge of Opava towards the end of 2019/20 season, SFC immediately roared to their best and 9th best xGF values in his first two games on the bench. Now, Pardubice have undergone similar offensive awakening; their average of penalty area entries from open play has shot up by 3,4 per game after plummeting in Krejčí’s and Novotný’s last 5 matches. Pardubice’s build-up has looked refreshed and their rolling 5-game xGF average is currently at the season highest point (1,21). That, though, is still only good for 15th in the league, giving you a decent idea of how deep a hole Pardubice had dug for themselves. Still, what’s far more concerning is the trade-off at the other end. While Pardubice did prove to be able to go below 1 expected goal against prior to Kováč’s arrival, the closest they’ve come to such an experience since was against Jablonec; and Markovič still had to prevent 1,02 goals then. All in all, the Slavia loanee would be reasonably expected to concede 17(,04) goals over the eight games with Kováč in charge; the fact he’s managed to keep the real count at those exact 17 goals while facing 51 (!) shots is a marvel.
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.
There isn’t a single less convincing MVP team leader than Tomáš Vlček. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a fabulous first-year F:Liga-er; an elegant, ball-playing and lightning quick centre back whom we don’t produce nearly enough. As an ever-expansive presence, he shares the same creative echalon with Asger Sørensen (also 9 chance-creating actions) or Michal Kadlec (10), which is really as big a compliment as they come at 21.
Vlček has also been implicated in 9 goals conceded, however, and has this habit of jumping into shots (often doing some sort of a pirouette in process) like a freaking ice hockey defender — a habit begging to get eradicated.
That sets him back a ton on my leaderboard, thus paving the way for Michal Hlavatý (1,1 MVP points behind!), Dominik Janošek (29,1) and Jakub Markovič (44,4) to close him down after an impressive start. The first two basically have the same profile — each sitting on 3 goals, 3 goal-creating actions (yet only one assist between them) and 21 chances contributed to — while Markovič, a seven-time MotM, has been an insanely busy goalkeeper.
Wild card
If you’ve followed my ramblings closely enough, you can imagine how much over the moon I was to read that Pardubice are trying to offload Tomáš Zahradníček over the winter break. That’s because he’s the single biggest reason why Vojtěch Sychra had slowly disappeared from the starting XI, despite making for a very reliable bright light early on.
An elusive winger with tremendous acceleration and top notch brain, that allows him to attack the goal-line (usually runs deep) cleverly and threaten equally on both flanks, finished the fall with the joint second-most primary chance contributions (10), sharing the spot with the veteran centre forward Pavel Černý who could almost be his father and accrued 413 extra minutes. If the 21-year-old doesn’t feature more regularly in 2023, a bigger club of, say, Jablonec stature should immediately pounce and make him a bargain.
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 the 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.
I’m not dead certain this is how it looks like when a model has seen enough and effectively given up on you as a team, but it sure as hell looks like it. The 37% increase in relegation likelihood over 16 rounds is depressing enough; more so with the virtual certainty of landing inside the bottom six. Interestingly enough, Pardubice are still projected to win 7 games — meaning they would have to beat 4 opponents out of the remaining 14. Even that looks like a tall order at the moment, but it can only get better.
My bold prediction’s status: To be decided.
One of a few bold predictions that literally couldn’t have come to fruition (or the opposite) in the first half of the season as it focuses squarely on the actual home opener against Slavia on 4 February where Pardubice are supposed to bag an unfortunate own goal. I’ve bet on this bold prediction myself in our little game and there’s three (very cautious) buccaneers cheering for some more Pardubice misfortune along with me. Go on then!
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