Pilsen won Tuesday’s rematch of the second preliminary round of the Champions League with HJK Helsinki and continues in the competition after a 6-0 overall win. What did head coach Michal Bílek say after advancing to the third qualifying round?
The opening match in Finland could be viewed from two perspectives. In terms of performance, it was not good from the Czech champion, on the other hand, he scored two goals from two shots on goal and took West Bohemia to a 2:1 win.
Revenge was already clearly under the direction of Pilsen. In the tenth minute, Luděk Pernica opened the score of the match, from that moment on, the Victorians controlled the course, did not let the opponent into anything and added four more goals in front of a full stadium.
“Of course, we are all very happy that we managed to advance. I think it was deserved. When we scored to make it 1-0, we calmed down and our game had a very good quality.” said Bílek for club website.
Pilsen can not only continue to dream of the Champions League, but at the same time added important points to the Czech coefficient and secured at least the Conference League group. The Czechs will also have representatives in the cups this year.
In the third preliminary round, the play-off for the Champions League will be played. The opponent will be Šerif Tiraspol, who reached the LM group last year and beat Real Madrid or Shakhtar Donetsk in it.
“If we don’t manage it, we are under a lot of pressure. We have something for sure, which is great, but we have another challenge ahead of us. We want to succeed again. Now we’re talking about the certainty of the European Conference League, that’s great, but we want to go a notch higher.” continued the best coach of last year’s Fortuna League.
Even before Tiraspol, Viktoria will start the league season. The lot favored her for the start, the first match is played at Teplice, who are candidates for relegation. The match starts on Saturday at 19:00, and the West Bohemians will face the Moldavian champions on Tuesday.
Pilsen won the title last year also thanks to the fact that rivals Slavia and Sparta played cups and did not have such a long time to regenerate. This year, English weeks are also waiting for Victoria, which the players have to slowly get used to.
“We do not prefer one competition or the other, we also want to start the league well. We also talked about it with the players, that both competitions are on the same line for us. I’m not saying that we won’t make changes in Teplice, but the start of the league is very important for us,” Bílek added.
Source: FC Viktoria Plzeň
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