Luka Modric Ruins Santi Denia's Debut

If you're watching this on the YouTube channel, you can see some trees behind me it's a lovely place and I've got a bit of time ahead of the game between the Czech Republic and Croatia which is the first game of the Nations League which has started this week and my country Czechia are playing their first game and I am buzzing for it as usual i'm excited and i'm recording a vlog because you know what guys this is my last chance here in the czech republic to see the czech team and before i go back to vietnam so i thought to myself hey denek the tickets are still available yes the price is a bit too much yes i had to pay 100 euros for a single ticket So actually it's like a really good seat.

It's like a prime seat, prime ticket, but still I'm not very happy about the price.

It's a bit high for my liking.

but I thought to myself hey you have to do it anyway since this is your last opportunity to see the Czech team and there then of course you are on your way back to Vietnam so by the way the next game against England which is happening in about four days unfortunately I will be on the plane when we are playing this game so I made this mistake that I booked the plane ticket exactly on the same day and at the same time which is a bit disappointing but at least I can enjoy this game against Croatia hopefully right so of course Croatia a big team I mean it's it looks like on paper on paper this is the easiest of the three opponents that we have in our group in our qualification group because there is England Croatia and also Spain unfortunately so But this game is super interesting.

I don't want to say important, but it's super interesting for one big reason.

And that's the fact that for the first time ever, there will be a foreign coach in the Czech dugout.

So a lot of people are really curious.

The media are curious, the football fans.

and I'm actually surprised this match is not sold out yet I think still about 10% of the tickets are available so honestly I just hope there will be good atmosphere there tonight and I want to see some goals I don't really mind if Czechia lose this game because to be fair kind of expected anyway when croatia are a great team people say it's an aging team yeah some of the players are a bit older notably luka modric you could say this is their biggest name the biggest superstar and i think is he 40 or 41 or something like that that's just quite old for a football player our oldest player will probably be vladimir sofal at the age of 33 or 34 but still you know it's um it's something you would expect from teams who have older players to start sort of losing their pace and you would think that this might play a part in the result of the game but I don't think that will be the case with Croatia because sometimes older players who are able to pass the ball effectively can outsmart their opponents so obviously You know, it's really hard to expect what will happen.

I suppose we could take advantage of the fact that we will be playing a younger team because obviously, as you may expect, with this new sort of era of Czech football under the Spanish coach Santi Denia, This will be a bit of a rebuild, or at least I expect a completely different approach.

I expect us to be a bit more on the ball.

I'm not saying we're going to start playing tiki taka.

I really don't expect that.

Besides, it's going to take time.

This coach will have to be given time.

There must be patience from the Czech Football Association with this coach.

Otherwise, you cannot call it a project.

If we expect results immediately, especially against these three opponents, that would be absolute madness in my opinion.

So I think this coach will be given time.

There will be defeats.

These are big teams we are about to face.

So there will be defeats along the way, perhaps even heavy defeats.

But I hope not tonight.

And my main reason for it is that on paper, this is the easiest of the six games, right? This is Croatia.

arguably the easiest opponent and it's at home so if you want to collect some points it probably might have to be now but is it all about the points is it all about the result that's the thing i'm not sure it is i think it's more about trying to get the fans back on your side after this disappointment from the world cup and just play some lovely football and to try out a new system new approach try out the new players and give a chance to those players that might not necessarily play under normal circumstances and frankly there has been a bit of a bummer, you could say, because in the original nomination, we had seven players who then had to call off their nomination because of some injuries.