2022/23 team preview: FC Viktoria Plzeň
Such a shame we didn’t yet run a season forecast in 2021 — I would’ve loved to see the odds. The Plzeň title wasn’t completely unimaginable as we all knew they were better value than 5th last term (or did we?), so it’s not in the same stratosphere as, say, Liberec going the distance in 2012 after finishing 7th the year before. What else then? Could Slavia’s jump from 5th to 1st in 2016/17 be the only recent comparable? How ironic.
I’m sure Plzeň fans don’t care, but it’s going to be fascinating to see what stage they’re at in three years’ time. Their 2021/22 cinderella run was already performed on some borrowed time, and now it appears as though they are pushing all the remaining chips to the centre of the table, too. Plzeň basically could’ve gone two separate ways: either say “cool, we won another one, now let’s cash in on Staněk, Kalvach, whoever and get richer, younger”, or work desperately towards prolonging the win-now mode for as long as possible.
Eight arrivals and one Staněk extension later, we can confidently conclude Adolf Šádek has opted for the latter — amid speculation that he’s signing all these documents against the backdrop of a growing debt, with Viktoria yet to secure that elusive investor. The word out there is Šádek will only decide what to do based on how the club fares in UEFA competitions. Meanwhile, some players’ title-winning bonuses have been reportedly put on hold upon club’s kind request.
Will this all be worth it? We may already be wiser come July 20 when Plzeň get their 2022/23 season underway. For now, all we know is main partner Doosan is returning on the jersey.
Off the pitch, all focus isn’t on the present, with the club following a 3-year-old plan to promote eSports and women’s football in town. Gone is the unpopular sporting director Zdeněk Psotka, too, frequently blamed for stagnation of youth football at Štruncové sady. The ongoing construction of a new youth sports centre, including accommodation for regional academy, recovery and training area for winter months, shall therefore be completed under the watch of Daniel Kolář — another face of the golden era joining the staff/management, following Marek Bakoš, Matúš Kozáčik or Pavel Horváth.
Looking back on 2021/22
What went (particularly) right
I mean, I concluded my 2021 introduction by uttering “this is hardly the year Plzeň return to the top…” and they absolutely did — so mark that down as the number one item. Number two, Plzeň got the proverbial X-factor back. Great teams usually find a way to win a tight battle — sure enough, Plzeň were a stunning 17:1 in one-goal games on the season. Great teams usually thrive under pressure — sure enough, Plzeň went 4-1-0 in the championship group while posting 5 positive xG results. Great teams usually start concentrated — sure enough, Plzeň conceded a grand total of six first-half goals across all 35 games, exactly half the Slavia’s total. Great teams typically have set pieces all figured out — sure enough, Plzeň boasted the best differential by far (+18 to the tune of 27 goals scored, 9 goals conceded), with 5 extra goals on Sparta.
Viktoria very much checked all the boxes — standing tall as the best side at cracking the opponent’s penalty area as well as defending its own (per success rate) — and they were indeed a great title-winning team, however much my teeth still screech while typing this. Even legitimate dominance can be ugly.
What went (especially) wrong
The once impressive build-up suffered under Bílek; it wasn’t as fluid and consistent, making for a sleeping giant for long stretches and ultimately giving Plzeň only the 5th best average xG generated from positional attacks. Viktoria got just enough goals, but the sudden Midas touch of their players felt like an overdue compensation for the other extreme we witnessed in 2021/22.
(Young) player development must be some cause for concern, too, if not necessarily an immediate one: Janošek got discarded having done nothing wrong, the coaching staff gave up on Šulc at a time when he needed their support the most, Hlavatý is gone without getting so much as a sniff, Bucha was OK but not much more than that in a role not suited to his skillset and looks further away from a potential move to a better league after making strides under Guľa — and that’s literally all Plzeň players under contract born in 1998-2000 who played a role. Building for future still isn’t on the agenda.
Most valuable player
who I consider to be the greatest 2021/22 contributor of all players still on board
Together with the departed Jean-David Beauguel, Jindřich Staněk was the only Plzeň player to clear the 90-percentile bar at his own position. That feels weird, but A) Jhon Mosquera wasn’t too far behind with 84,6 and, perhaps more importantly, B) it speaks to the player development issue I briefly highlighted earlier. Viktoria worked as a whole, but spare for the late Lukáš Kalvach return to top form and some unlikely veteran resurgence (Lukáš Hejda, Radim Řezník are not liked by my model but were vital contributors as leaders and goalscorers regardless), no one else was really thriving under the pragmatic coach.
Staněk, though, is currently the most valuable asset Viktoria boast and for plenty of good reasons. While he still needs to work on his sweeping and mid-range distribution (whereas his long-range passes created two chances!), Staněk’s game is otherwise very well-rounded. He’s active on the goal-line, extremely dependable when it comes to facing long-range shots, can pull off a true stunner (stolen four games for Plzeň per my methodology, frustrating Slovácko on both occasions) and his 5,81 prevented non-penalty goals are of particular value to a side that’s made a habit out of winning by the thinnest of margins. It’s an equivalent of ~11 points in the bag thanks to Staněk alone.
Chip on the shoulder
who’s got something to particularly prove — either to himself, fans or the coach
Once he hangs up his boots, Aleš Čermák may very well make for one of the trickiest players to evaluate as far as his career is concerned. And the odds are he’ll be painted as a virtual failure given his pedigree.
He’s clearly got talent — offering a rare mix of goalscoring and playmaking abilities — yet spare for the entire year 2020 under Adrián Guľa, he’s only ever flashed it in patches. He was once U-21 captain, yet he stupidly missed the pinnacle of his junior career — 2017 Euro — because of a drunk-driving incident. Now he’s a two-time champion, yet he’s contributed to both triumphs with just 838 and 900 mins of action. In his first title-winning season at Plzeň (2017/18), he would chip in with all five points in only two games against a lowly Brno (relegated from 16th place that year) and a not-much-better Dukla (11th). In this past campaign, he merely contributed one assist to a 6:0 debacle of Bohemians.
My model still sees a fantastic final third attacking midfielder, but that’s not really a type Michal Bílek is looking for, and Čermák was clearly uneasy for much of 2021/22. It’s also undeniable that my model flatters him; in a small sample of 957 actual minutes, his 279 mins spent largely bullying bottom-five sides (nearly 30% of all playing time) are doing too much heavy-lifting.
Čermák doesn’t turn 28 until October and should, theoretically, be at the peak of his powers right about now, but it looks virtually guaranteed he’ll just casually wind down his contract at Viktoria and look to rebound elsewhere. Health issues impeding this crucial off-season certainly aren’t helping.
Inside the club’s off-season
with much thanks to @19ws92, @JakubLebloch, @Michal0094, @MartinNov5 and @rozlivek99 for guiding me through the motions of Plzeň’s pre-season
Judging by how the pre-season has gone, it seems a bit like karma has caught up with Plzeň who scored just once over their 3 final training camp friendlies. If this is it — the entire compensation for some lucky results along the path to glory — no one will mind, of course. But if the 0-2-1 record in Austria was to stretch only ever so slightly to the Champions League preliminary rounds, then we may be in for a couple of turbulent weeks stemming from this all.
Fans are largely unconcerned about the results. Beşiktaş were pretty much the only — and final — opponent that faced something resembling a full-strength Plzeň XI and they were the worse side on the day despite superior pedigree. This goalless draw is fine, then, but what’s causing most headaches in the Plzeň camp is Viktoria’s other performance against a 3-at-the-back formation; the 1:3 loss to Sint-Truiden to the tune of a shocking 0,24 : 3,11 xG scoreline.
Why bother? Because HJK Helsinki — Viktoria’s dreaded UCL opponent — won the Finnish league mostly lining up in a tricky 3-4-3 formation and Plzeň’s coaching staff — by their own semi-admission — are not quite ready for it.
It’s nice to see them being aware of it and trying to fix it, though, much like it’s nice to hear that Plzeň were working on a more active defending as well as playing out from the back.
Squad turnover
Last summer, Plzeň were retaining a comfortable 86,4% of all goals scored. This year, that percentage is down considerably to 64,5% courtesy of one Jean-David Beauguel. As for minutes played, however, Viktoria are proving to be as rigid as ever — still standing tall as one of three teams with over 80% of mins still on board. The next most used departed player after Beauguel would be Pavel Šulc who barely qualified for a pizza chart with 952 mins eaten up.
Biggest upgrade
I must admit that only once I started mapping out all sections for this preview, I realized how little actual backup Jhon Mosquera had last season, with Šimon Falta, Jan Sýkora or Šulc taking largely anonymous turns to give him a breather every now and then. It’s not like he needed it — getting the call 33 times, on average playing 77,8 minutes a night — but it was still a lowkey need for Plzeň to address this off-season as the Colombian turned 32 in May.
Enter Václav Pilař who’s no younger, of course (very on-brand), but no worse either. Together, these two basically make for a complete left winger.
While Mosquera tracks back diligently, crosses a ton and boasts a diploma in shithousery, Pilař focuses on just about all the other things — like cutting inside, attacking the centre of the box, and switching play to the other flank. If you were to always take the higher percentile value of the two in trying to combine for the perfect winger, the only value dropping below 60-percentile bar would be for progressive passes allowed to go past, arguably the least important (or tangible) metric of all sixteen. They’ll help you in all situations.
Given the promising early returns on the romantic comeback, the Pilař #6 kit could easily be poised to become a record-selling item in Viktoria’s fanshop.
Additionally, Plzeň made smart business in improving their centre back depth, specifically focusing on adding dynamism given the deteriorating condition of Lukáš Hejda and, to a lesser extent, his 32-year-old peer Luděk Pernica.
Filip Čihák and Mohamed Tijani are both at least seven years younger than the pair and while they may not be an immediate upgrade on the whole, they are one in some aspects of their game as you’ll notice below. Tijani’s mysterious illness made him miss the entire summer preparation, so he’s a longshot to make an impact anytime soon, but Čihák is likely to provide immediate injection of mobility both on and off the ball — he’s one of the faster CBs around in my books and carries the ball upfield both willingly and effectively, something David Rozlivek noted as the most pleasant surprise of pre-season.
I’m sure you didn’t notice Hejda acting as any sort of a liability, since Bílek’s system — unlike Guľa’s — does a good job in covering up his deficiencies, but landing in the 13,8 pct for possession-adjusted interceptions and 34,5 pct for success rate in loose ball duels is still a significant worry going forward.
Tijani, meanwhile, was the single biggest reason behind the uptick in Teplice’s defensive play in the second half of the season and, should his health allow him to do so, he shall eventually be of some value — though not too much.
Biggest downgrade
You and I both know very well who it is, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
Jean-David Beauguel was the consensus best hold-up striker in the league, even though there was a point where many Plzeň fans felt he was sort of overdoing it by dropping too deep too often in a very Harry Kane fashion. My model is also a bit conflicted on his target man qualities: he’s a stud aerially, of course, but his lay-offs in danger areas left a fair bit to be desired. This particular layer of his game would improve considerably towards the end of the season, however, infallibly pointing at a formidable clutch performer. Per CSfotbal’s innovative model, Beauguel’s goals have added the most expected points per game out of all regular strikers (0,56), and he was still arguably unlucky, with my mini-model suggesting he was good for an extra 2,3 goals.
New kid on the block
Here we go again. I was forced to reach for a 24-year-old last summer and now I’m running into an even more acute shortage of legitimately new faces. Homegrown talent Alexandr Sojka (b. 2003) began the summer with A-team, held his own as a hard-working, tall central midfielder and Kuba is a big fan of his (left-footed) profile, but since he was left out of the Austria camp squad, Sojka is destined to spend another year honing his crafts in the 3rd tier.
Help is on the way, though; the reserves finished 4th in ČFL last season (possibly aiming to replicate what Slavia “B” have just done next year) and already feature the most special prospect of all in smart, expansive right back Pavel Gaszczyk (b. 2005) who captains U-17 national team and somehow didn’t get a look-in with the first team this summer. Elsewhere, U-19s finished 6th and U-16s as well as U-13s are champions — for what it’s worth anyway.
Back on the senior level, the only player with a truly fresh feeling about him is Matej Trusa, a 21-year-old Slovak whose disgusting dive or clever dribble vs Slavia — depending on who you ask — very much fetched the gold medals for Viktoria. That said, he’s totalled a mere 97 minutes last season (across seven appearances), so he more or less qualifies as an unknown entity here.
Trusa is a sneaky breakout star candidate who has the raw tools — emphasis on “raw” — to ultimately jump ahead of Sýkora and Čermák in the attacking midfielder / second striker pecking order. He brings the work rate and directness in the final third that should appeal to Bílek, but David notes he should work very hard on picking the right spots for pulling the trigger. As of now, he wastes too many opportunities by ignoring a teammate and shooting.
Looking ahead to 2022/23
Below is the team’s current depth chart with a maximum of 4 alternatives for one position. All depth charts are up to date as of July 14 and obviously subject to change since the transfer window is far from closed at the moment. Players highlighted in red are longterm absentees rather far from making a comeback, while players in italics are all-but-confirmed arrivals. Those likely to depart will be highlighted in the text below, as will some other depth options or changes occurring since July 14. To add a little flavour, I’ve intuitively rated various positions/areas of the pitch — goal, right flank, left flank, central defence, central midfield, forward positions (incl. attacking midfielders) — on a simple scale, creating five tiers, which is what the different shading (blue to red) represents.
Need left to be addressed
It’s clear that Plzeň’s top priority this summer has been bolstering the depth — doubling up all key positions with the main expectation of “English weeks” — and they’ve done an alright job at that, with the sole exception of left back where the depth is stacked on paper, but three of those options are actually B or C roles for the individuals (and Milan Havel has also played right back more in recent years), so it’s definitely not an optimal situation.
As far as best XI goes, I think Jan Kopic shouldn’t be a nailed-on starter anymore, and he pretty much is one as far as the current depth chart goes. Sýkora will be needed in the hole, starting Pilař out right would tame his main weapon (cutting-edge dribbling towards the goal), Cadu will likely be busy travelling all across the pitch (and he spent a grand total of 113 minutes at RW in his breakout 2021/22 season, so again — not the ideal use), you’d optimally want Trusa closer to the centre and Ondřej Mihálik is good as gone.
Sure, it’s a luxury problem to have, but a bonafide RW star would come in handy. And there’s a chance Kopic would provide more value in a smaller role.
Some random notes on the depth chart:
- For all the depth bolstering done, the central midfield department looks a bit… uninspiring? Modou N’Diaye’s no-nonsense defensive cover could come in handy if Plzeň make it to some UEFA competition’s group stages, but it’s hard to see what Kristi Qose is coming to solve. Portraying him as someone “capable of playing at no. 6” was weird to begin with (he’s not), but to make matters worse, he’s reportedly arrived short on fitness and motivation, not really fitting inside the dressing room. I’m not surprised, as he’s been on a downward trajectory for the past two years, but it goes without saying that it would be a slight fiasco should he instantly leave on loan. Beyond that, there’s next to no one to count on following the departures of useful depth pieces like Miroslav Káčer and Dominik Janošek. Kalvach is a stud, but Pavel Bucha may not be one anymore:
- Ondřej Mihálik has enjoyed a potent pre-season and there was a sense he could be playing his way back in the coaching staff’s plans, but his salary is too high for a squad player and there’s a sound chance he ends up being the odd man out when Viktoria announce the Champions League squad.
- Martin Jedlička was by all accounts slated to be the no. 2 and heir apparent to Staněk, but his drop below Marián Tvrdoň is supposed to reflect his underwhelming pre-season. He could still be the back-up, but with Staněk extended till 2025 and set to stay, it’s irrelevant anyway. (Unless Staněk proves beyond a reasonable doubt he’s indeed too injury-prone, which may very well be the case — remember the start of 2021/22.)
- Another underwhelming reinforcement: Jan Kliment. He’s mostly been started within an improvised setting — like Janošek at CB, Káčer at RB, Cadu at no. 10 — but he nonetheless hasn’t been effective enough (or confident; surprise relegation ought to take its toll on an expensive signing, surely) to unsettle Tomáš Chorý as the most probable go-to man at the top. Regardless, it will be interesting to see who’ll bag the goals and how regularly, because my model saw Chorý contributing more as a (fantastic) provider and middle/final third facilitator than a finisher in 2021/22, and Kliment was more of the same in his full year at Slovácko.
- To that end, while René Dedič felt like a bizarre signing, it’s not a completely unreasonable one as he looked elite in a small (!) 2020/21 sample when it came to some essential poacher qualities like putting shots on target and strucking ball with power. Given that the FORTUNA:LIGA benches expanded to 11 warm bodies, the Slovak forward will always be around and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s strongly preferred when Bílek decides to go two up top; he’s got potential to complement Chorý/Kliment.
Roster battle to follow
Is Libor Holík just a younger version of the old version of Řezník? It’s difficult to say for sure, but their 2021/22 comparison paints a staggering picture:
I’m not saying bringing back Holík was necessarily a mistake (it’s a loan with option to buy, so it’s largely a risk-free move), but it sure as hell seems like the case of sticking with the winning formula at all cost without recognizing neither Řezník nor Holík were especially vital to Plzeň actually winning. Řezník attacks the far post well — and that’s basically it. Holík can be a bit more offensively, but he didn’t show it to/under Bílek in particular. And that’s the thing: why not go after a different profile? You might argue Cadu is exactly that, but then why go back to Holík? It’s just a lack of imagination.
Besides, let’s not underestimate the “fact” that Řezník is just entering year-1 of steep decline per usual aging curves. There’s always an outlier, but Řezník has for a longtime posted fairly consistent, predictable underlying numbers.
Season forecast
There’s basically two ways of reading this: it could be interpreted as a sign of weakness that Plzeň’s title defence only has a 21% chance of happening per our model, or it’s a sign of progress that Plzeň only register a 2% danger of dropping out of Top 3 — a year on from finishing 5th, 11 points away from it.
I can’t tell you what’s the right way of reading the graph, but it’s a peculiar starting position for the reigning champions. Especially as the most likely battle for the 2nd position appears to be this model’s equivalent of a coin toss.
Bold prediction
The track record: 0/1. Šulc’s abject finishing let me down.
The prediction: Plzeň won’t have a single player among Top 10 point-getters
The rationale: I suspect this may sound more radical than it actually is. Viktoria have just lost the league’s leading scorer in Jean-David Beauguel (23 points), yes, but he was internally followed by Mosquera who already landed outside; 11th with 13 points. Third Sýkora was far behind (24th, 10 points).
You needed at least 14 points to crack the Top 10 in the past three seasons alike and it was actually 16 points in 2018/19. That’s not too low a bar to clear. It would still be a surprise to not see a single Plzeň player meet this threshold, sure, but seeing the crowded front-line I can easily imagine all strikers splitting their point-getting pretty much equally. And the competition has gotten stiffer all across the board — Cadu was in the Top 10 this year but will inevitably see less playing time and Pilař rivalling Mosquera suggests much of the same. If you sorted the leaderboard by points per game, only Beauguel was anywhere close to the top (0,7). Mosquera followed at 30th.
Therefore, I believe it’s not too unreasonable to expect more rotation leading to less playing time turning into less stunning point-getting performances.
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