2023/24 team preview: FC Slovan Liberec
Back-to-back finishes outside Top 6? Yikes. That not only hadn’t happened to Liberec since 2009-11, but it’s also only the second time in Slovan’s 30-year top flight history fullstop (the only other such period came in 1998-00). On the first count, it took Liberec two years to turn the prolonged disappointment into a maiden title; on the second count — while also following up on 9th and 7th (in the exact same order!) — they wouldn’t waste any time whatsoever. You see, Slovan fans, every cloud… *winks at the lonely person in the background burning their Victor Olatunji jersey and slowly pouring petrol over the Ľubomír Tupta one, too, in sheer resignation*
After 4 consecutive Top 6 placements overseen by other coaches, it would perhaps make sense if Luboš Kozel was let go at the end of his contract. Instead, he got extended and handed a new assistant, Josef Petřík jr., who’s just dominated the 4th tier with the Slovan reserves (23-4-3), earning immediate promotion on the strength of the best attack and defence.
As luck would have it, Josef Petřík sr. coached Liberec to 5th place in 1997/98 only for a certain Ladislav Škorpil to take over halfway through the next season. He couldn’t quite salvage it (9th) and followed up via no-more-inspiring 8th-place finish, yet the club had stuck by him, soon reaping rewards. To add more intrigue, Petřík sr. was actually highly involved in the second instance of back-to-back disappointment, taking charge of a total of 29 games over the 2009-11 period to set the scene for Jaroslav Šilhavý.
Is a Petřík this ironic lucky charm, essential to all major Slovan bounce-backs? Neither you nor I can rule it out beyond a reasonable doubt.
It would, of course, be highly symbolic if Liberec do indeed stun the bookmakers — only making for the 10th biggest favourite going by Fortuna — and set off to win the title in a third consecutive decade just as Theo Gebre Selassie, hero of the last golden run, is reportedly negotiating a future management role at the club he’s become a modern-day icon of.
Looking back on 2022/23
What went (particularly) right
Slovan posted the third highest average of clear shots per game, only lagging behind the runaway Top 2, which is mostly a testament to their return as a top notch counter-attacking outfit. While hitting your opponent on a counter, it’s easier to then not find anyone standing in your shot’s way (definition of a “clear” shot), and sure enough, Liberec finished off a league-high 54,4% of all their counter-attacks while averaging the third highest counter-attacking xGF (0,20) only after Sparta and Slavia again. This was a nice departure from the 0,05 average that ranked 15th in 2021/22.
Of course, the twin arrival of fantastic counter-attacking weapons in Olatunji and Tupta was a complete game-changer with Liberec leaving a stunning 83% of their season counter-attacking xGF for the spring (5,38).
What went (especially) wrong
Liberec would never have landed 7th had they not improved on the counter, because their positional attacking (through build-up) has steadily remained as miserable as ever since Pavel Hoftych came on board.
This was still a team that completed the third least deep passes as well as crosses (runs with the ball being their preferred way of gaining zone; again a nod towards Tupta and Olatunji, especially, whose preference it mainly is), ending up responsible for a vastly concerning 39,3% of all open play penalty area entries occurring in its games; 2nd lowest ratio after Teplice.
Passing was generally a problem, with Slovan’s quintet of most used centre halves (Marios Pourzitidis, Dominik Plechatý, Filip Prebsl, Gebre Selassie and Max Talovierov) combining for a total of 24 misplaced passes setting up an opponent’s shot. This translates into StatsBomb database presenting Liberec as the most vulnerable outfit when it came to high pressing.
Oh, and defensive set pieces… holy shit, what a mess. No FORTUNA:LIGA side was let down by them more than Liberec who conceded the largest share of goals from set pieces (46,9%). Replace the total with this year’s average (17 goals instead of 23), and you’re looking at a Top 4 defence.
Most valuable player (still on board)
per my MVP model reflecting traditional stats: Christian Frýdek (10th in F:LIGA)
per my positional models reflecting advanced stats: Mohamed Doumbia & Ľubomír Tupta
per Statsbomb’s On-Ball Value (OBV) metric: Mohamed Doumbia
Strong finish, even a stronger start. Christian Frýdek had lost the way a little bit somewhere inbetween, briefly surrendering his previously nailed-on starting spot, but his full-season returns still easily warrant the MVP tag. Ľubomír Tupta and Mohamed Doumbia curiously topped their own positional models (with Frýdek not coming all that close to doing the same as part of CAM), but they were most certainly flattered by a small sample size. Achieving the 4th highest rate in expected assists as well as all chance/goal creation across 23,8 full starts is a different animal altogether.
Frýdek fascinates me, because he’s creative without being a particular gifted playmaker in the traditional sense of threading open lanes. I mean he does thread them often, but mostly with the ball at his feet (or as a give-and-go initiator), looking for a dangerous set piece at the very least. That’s what his high xA rate is largely a result of, along with a decent delivery.
Chip on the shoulder
who’s got something to particularly prove — either to himself, fans or the coach
The full/wingback situation at Liberec is by far the most intriguing to me. On the one hand, you’ve got Ahmad Ghali and Nicolas Penner freshly learning the ropes as former wingers-turned-wingbacks; on the second hand, you’ve got Jan Mikula and Michal Fukala as defensive specialists forced to be a bit/lot more further up at very different stages of their careers; and on the third (lol) hand you’ve got Karol Mészáros and Dominik Preisler, who’ve been truly or effectively discarded despite some fine performances at the said position (the latter is still Swiss-knife of a creator).
So there you go, an inaugural four-way tie for the biggest shoulder chip.
As for the first duo, it’s obviously far too small a sample, but I finally enjoyed/appreciated Penner during his brief late-season run as a makeshift LWB/RWB. He’s better deeper than further up, so it seems like a role right up his alley, and judging by pre-season, it’s where he’s getting deployed to start the campaign (though he was played centrally, too). It’s good Penner can shift from right to left, because the LWB spot looks to be Ghali’s to lose.
Seen with FB model’s lens, Ghali was unrivalled in taking the ball upfield, accelerating build-up and generally providing dynamism/unpredictability in the middle third, without much contribution further up. There’s always going to be drawbacks on the defensive side of his wingback game (like the least possession-adjusted interceptions performed or low fouls), but @prochyss39 tells me he’s looked better suited to it in pre-season, too.
As for the second duo, I fully expect Mikula to move more into the “veteran locker room presence” (or wide CB) territory, as the club should commit wholly to rounding Michal Fukala into a more complex wide operator.
There’s still technique, sense of responsibility and strength to build on, but the lack of visible (offensive) development — not helped by injury troubles — is starting to look peculiar. FWIW, per my tracked data, Fukala lands in the 69,2 percentile for chance/goal creation (which doesn’t necessarily translates to xG/xA) and StatsBomb’s OBV metric sees a potential high-end needle-mover in him, too, with Fukala ranking just behind team leader Doumbia (then again, Doumbia was the weakest leader league-wide, so…).
Inside the club’s off-season
with much thanks to @Briggus9, @domaUNisy, @klappe19, @prochyss39, @KuchyneZ and @SleglJan for guiding me through the motions of Liberec’s pre-season
Squad turnover
When it was suggested to Luboš Kozel at the curtain-raising presser that, for once, his squad has remained intact, he promptly issued a little pushback. Rightly so. While it’s true that 69,2% of retained 2022/23 minutes isn’t too bad compared to 2021/22’s 56,7% (ranked 15th) or even 2020/21’s 40,2% (also 15th), it’s all the same going to be a huge factor, no doubt, with only four FORTUNA:LIGA clubs doing worse on that front as of today.
The thing is, minutes are not all that matters, and if one Olatunji can set you back a mere 3% of retained playing time (he narrowly landed outside the most used eleven) but also a whopping 16% of goals retained — and nearly 11% of all goal contributions in 2022/23 — you do have a problem.
The idea is that Matěj Chaluš is returning to replace Gebre Selassie’s leadership, the loss of Matěj Valenta is getting absorbed internally and Mick Van Buren (still the 11th most used Liberec player of 2022/23!) has already been more or less replaced by Tupta’s no-lesser influence.
That’s not an awful idea, to be fair, but it’s still only that — an idea — now.
Biggest upgrade
This is but another section impacted by the late Victor Olatunji departure announcement. You see, Canada-born Luka Kulenović had initially arrived to upgrade Imad Rondić, but now — standing 190cm tall — he may be asked to effectively replace Olatunji, too, which sure seems like a tall(er) order.
I don’t know nearly enough about Kulenović to be his judge, but he was a very frequent target of long balls in the Bosnian top flight (succeeding in 54,6% of all aerial duels; a fine ratio), doing well on his dribbling success rate (upwards of 60%) and registering 0,41 xG per 90 minutes, hence offering the kind of presence his compatriot Rondić — willingly released and snapped up by Widzew Łódź — couldn’t provide. Rondić couldn’t hold his own aerially (42,9% success in/around attacking box; in line with his overall 43,1% rate), only dribbled for one chance created, and caused very little (shooting) damage in the box with his 2,41 ball touches per game.
Biggest downgrade
Here’s my initial pitch to the (non-existent) editors: Theo Gebre Selassie. His serious spring injury had already forced Liberec to adjust to life without him, which actually went down better than I expected (Slovan’s defence would improve considerably per xGA over the winter), but that doesn’t make him any less of a downgrade in terms of intangibles. After all, the initial shock was immense(ly visible): Gebre Selassie was first absent from the team sheet in R19, which is “coincidentally” also where Slovan’s neverending winless streak began. At the end of it (within seven matches), Liberec’s rolling 10-game xGA average would plummet from 1,73 to 2,21!
Do I now trust the rusty Matěj Chaluš, former immobile liability in his own right, to provide the same kind of reassuring presence in the back three? No, I do not; and I don’t trust frequent 2022/23 captain Dominik Plechatý (who’ll now perhaps deputize for Michael Rabušic, too) in just about anything that doesn’t concern ball-carrying — his sole fine/elite skill. Filip Prebsl, meanwhile, can’t be relied on as a (mature) leader and he’s gotten thoroughly destroyed in all kinds of duels, but dependable he can be…
Here’s my late submission to my (still non-existent) editors: Victor Olatunji.
Kozel maintained at today’s presser that the Nigerian was absolutely part of his plans going forward, but at the same time admitted the sheer volume of interest in him (not only from Sparta, but also Belgium or Poland) had naturally made him unsure. Now that Olatunji is gone, there is a near certainty Liberec won’t find an adequate replacement since even clubs with far greater resources would struggle to identify someone else who’d be capable of landing in 88+ percentile for both inside-the-box xG and all xA!
Olatunji is a big guy, but don’t let the classic African stereotype fool you. He’s very agile, recovered the most balls via duel engagement of all centre forwards, and while his link-up play (during positional attacking) could definitely get stronger, his prompt thinking on counter-attack could actually hardly be — and is a bit harder to capture by data available to me.
He’s basically our own peak Romelu Lukaku in that you look at him and see a “muscular target man” when he’s deceptively at his best on the fly. His profile doesn’t look eerily similar to that of 11cm shorter Tupta by accident:
New kid on the block
So far in this space, I‘d only been allowed to report on U-19 sides getting relegated from the top flight; Slovan Liberec U-19s allow me to report otherwise, reaching the category’s elite level after a seven-year absence.
That still hasn’t prevented the club from producing some very good talent. Milan Lexa (b. 2004) might be the cream of the recent crops, representing much the same type as his famous senior colleague Christian Frýdek. The one truly new kid would, however, be his peer Jakub Hudák (b. 2004) who carries the added value of being a Liberec native through and through, developing at the club since he was 8; a true rarity at Slovan these days. (Lexa hails from around Karlovy Vary which is also lovely, though, because of how historically and currently underrepresented the whole region is.)
Per @prochyss39, Hudák is a bit difficult to pin down positionally, usually acting as a withdrawn forward who doesn’t mind moving to the right and cross. He could make for a loose ball duel monster, relying on some fine anticipation, but more equal battles for the ball have made for a particular challenge as he needs to bulk up a bit — quite naturally for his age. Then again, an elusive goalscorer wouldn’t be too shabby an outcome either.
Looking ahead to 2023/24
Below is the team’s current(ish) depth chart with a maximum of 4 alternatives for one position. The depth chart is up to date as of July 13 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 the deadline. 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 consisting of 5 tiers, which is what the different shading (blue to red) represents.
Need left to be addressed
An Olatunji replacement — but he can’t make it all about him, can he? I would instead inject a bit more experience into the side, specifically in the CDM/CAM department where your most seasoned guy is 24-year-old Doumbia. Generally, Liberec were once again a very young team in 2022/23, handing out 38% of playing time to kids who were still U-23 at the season’s end (so excluding Frýdek, Doumbia, Plechatý, Pourzitidis, Rondić and Olivier Vliegen who were, for their part, 23 or younger at the season’s start!) and sourcing a record 58% of team MVP points from all U-23s before aging out. I don’t complain about this state of affairs, but you can support youth without overdoing it — and Slovan arguably overdo it regularly.
What’s particularly concerning is that Liberec allowed the second worst average of xGA generated down the middle (via positional attacks), pointing at Lukáš Červ being at least a tad out of depth as the go-to CDM guy. With Ivan Varmolomeyev hopefully ready to assume more responsibility (and do more beyond reckless tackling he’s mostly shown to date), this may not be as big a problem going forward, but I’d still like to see some more insurance. Even depth-wise, with Štěpán Beran surprisingly dodging Liberec for second-tier Vlašim after all, it doesn’t look too good.
Some random notes on the depth chart:
- As long as we all have Doumbia on mind, let’s collectively salivate over his pizza. His sample size is a worry (going forward), but nothing else is — this is a complete cental midfielder with tangible contribution in all phases of the game, hence someone who should let Liberec fans easily forget Christ Tiéhi (who’s, btw, still officially theirs as far as I know).
- The central midfield deck looks only a tad thinner because of the red-coloured Tomáš Polyák who wouldn’t be too relied on (and has been played out wide, too) but is still a few weeks away from recovering. Add Lexa and his own recurring ankle issues to the mix and… it’s not great.
- It’s definitely advisable to keep an open eye on the Slavia clique at Liberec, as ever, with Prebsl, Denis Višinský and Filip Horský all hailing from the same class (2003), together rising through Slavia ranks since 2016. I’m a big fan of Višinský and hope he can quickly re-discover his 2022 form upon his delayed return to top flight action. Despite receiving only 796 minutes (and last appearing in mid-February), he remained the team’s leader in chances created via dribbling (4) and applied pressure (3) per my own manual tracking. I’m not as familiar with Horský, but Kozel hasn’t been shy about utilizing him as a versatile forward.
- While sitting out the latter stages of 2022/23 as a healthy scratch, many Liberec fans had started suspecting Olivier Vliegen could be off this summer. Instead, he’s signed on at Slovan, which strikes me as especially vital since he looks like the only like-for-like (aerially, confidence-wise) replacement for Kovář Sparta could feasibly target.
Roster battle to follow
This will be a continuation of the first part of the “biggest downgrade” section, as I danced around Marios Pourzitidis on purpose — seeing him as the heir apparent of TGS in more ways than one. The Greek was by far the closest thing to Gebre Selassie in terms of aerial duels inside his own box won (both fit in the league’s Top 7, while the rest of the CB crop lingers in the basement), concentration and backstopping ability, controlled clearances (both are in the upper 1/4 of the league’s CB group; neither of their colleagues even reached 20-percentile bar) and chance-creation.
My model was fond of Pourzitidis in 2021/22 already, while not even many Slovan fans noticed, but it’s started to change this year when he was heads and shoulders above each Liberec defender throughout Theo-less spring.
Why needing to battle then? Because Kozel is bound to show some love to all of Prebsl, Plechatý and Chaluš, too, so it’ll be tough for Pourzitidis to hold onto his starting spot — even if he’s the only senior candidate Slovan actually has control over (ie. has him under contract that’s not a loan one).
That said, there could be one more rival who’s not to be underestimated: Belgian Milan Govaers (b. 2004) has been part of senior team summer preparations, is also used to playing almost exclusively on the left, and carries a promising skillset combining decent distribution and power. Then again, he’s pretty much equally comfortable as a no. 6, further up the field.
Season forecast
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. Just like last year, the model is additionally fed by my personal assessment of off season changes, for better or worse, to account for what the model can’t capture. MOL Cup is also simulated. The probability of qualifying for UEFA competitions takes both the league and the cup into account. For a more technical explanation of how the model works, kindly head here.
Right off the bat, it needs to be stressed this projection was produced when Olatunji was still on board, dealing with visa and looking like he might actually stay. Seeing that even with him accounted for, the model gives Liberec just a 34% chance of a Top 6 finish, it’d be outright foolish of me to come on a podcast and mark Liberec down as the 6th best team, wouldn’t it? Anyway, aided by the UEFA slot expansion, Slovan do return back to UEFA competitions in a significant 21% of all simulations, which is a tad more than last year (19%), but a middle group landing all the same appears to be more likely by an even more considerable 10 percentage points (50%).
Bold prediction
The track record: 1/2. Vliegen didn’t outdo Knobloch’s clean sheet streak
The prediction: Luboš Kozel will post over 50% winning percentage for once
The rationale: I’ve spoken at length about Luboš Kozel and his peculiar lack of consistency throughout his most recent stints, touching upon it as part of this year’s mid-season review, too, but even I was surprised by the fact he’s only ever enjoyed an above-average season per winning percentage once in his 16-year career — and that was over a decade ago with Dukla Praha (51,1% in 2012/13). Other than that, he hasn’t even come too close to meeting the bar, with his career percentage (33,3%) lagging behind that of Luděk Klusáček, Zdeněk Psotka or Martin Hašek (!) among coaches who’ve racked up 100+ bench appearances since Kozel entered the league.
That’s quite bizarre, isn’t it, for a manager with such an early-career hype.
Now, the spring Liberec didn’t show any improvement in this respect after I posed the question “Will Liberec finally find a way to evolve under Luboš Kozel?” — swiftly proceeding to suffer through a seven-game winless streak — so it seems counter-intuitive to now expect such a dramatic change. After all, we are talking a full-season winning percentage, so if Liberec are to crack the Top 6 (as I expect them to do), they’ll most likely need to put together a bit of an historic championship group showing to meet the goal.
On the other hand, they close 2023/24 out with a Hradec Králové matchup (30 points in 11 stands against them for Kozel!) and the manager’s former employer in Baník Ostrava (whom he’ll have great motivation to finally beat on the 5/6th try since leaving), so that could make for a nice segway into the post season. Plus, maybe Ivan Kopecký — Kozel’s right-hand since 2019/20 off to seek a fresh challenge — was the stumbling block all along!
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