Stanciu’s volley secured Christmas win in Pilsen

The Red-Whites travelled to Pilsen, home of last season’s runners-up of the Czech League, for the last game of 2020. Head coach Jindřich Trpišovský made a sole change in the starting XI in comparison to previous game against Bohemians. Ondřej Lingr replaced Peter Olayinka, who extended injury list of Slavia players just before the game.

Slavia burst into the game with a great energy but had to wait until the 18th minute to see a goal-scoring opportunity. Lukáš Provod picked Lukáš Masopust at the right-hand side, who immediately crossed the ball in front of the goal and precisely found Jan Kuchta at the far post. Unfortunately, the young striker only fired the ball over the cross bar from the close range.

With this chance wasted, the hosts could go in front only four minutes later, when Ondřej Kolář was forced to pull off an incredible goal-line stop against Čermák’s header to keep the score level.

Big players deliver in big games, they say. And in the 22th minute, Nicolae Stanciu once again proved, that he is rightfully labelled as one as well. Abdallah Sima and his impressive speed took attention of four Pilsen players and enabled Jan Kuchta to cross from the right side. The striker found Nico Stanciu in the box and Slavia #7 buried the ball into the back of the net with a delightful volley from the edge of the box – 1-0 for the Red-Whites!

In the 40th minute, Nicolae Stanciu could double the lead with a curling effort from the left side, but this time Pilsen goalkeeper Staněk denied the Romanian with a strong hand.

After the break, Slavia continued with their domination and could increase the lead on several occasions with the biggest arriving in the 61st minute. Nicolae Stanciu’s perfectly timed pass sent Abdallah Sima into 1 vs 1 situation with Staněk, but Senegalese starlet fired the ball only few inches away from the top-right corner. Only few seconds later, Mihálik could punish Slavia for wasting of their chances and make the score-line level, but failed to test Ondřej Kolář with an inaccurate shot from inside of the box.

Slavia kept on pushing, but the second decisive goal was still not coming. Lukáš Masopust and David Zima came both close to scoring in the 81th minute, but Staněk and Hejda a few seconds later prevented both players from writing their names on the score-sheet.

But at the end, one goal was enough. Pilsen didn’t manage to create any last-minute pressure on the Slavia defence and the Red-Whites calmly grabbed all the three points for the 1-0 win!

Slavia finished 2020 part of the season in the 1st place with 35 points out of 13 games played! Bring on 2021!