When Slavia brought Petr Hronek in the winter, many were surprised. But the combative midfielder from Bohemians shows why Jindřich Trpišovský and his colleagues looked for him.
For a long time, Petr Hronek belonged to the average league players. He started in Jablonec, via Vlašim and Příbram he got to Jihlava, from where he headed to Zlín after three seasons.
He stayed there for two years and transferred to Bohemians. He didn’t stand out in any way from the beginning, his best performance was last year, when he scored 7 goals, which is his highest number in the league.
He also had a decent autumn, so he moved in the winter. But only from the cabin, he could keep the apartment because he stayed in Vršovice. Slavia Prague reached out for him, which was quite a shock for some. Stapling with a loaded squad full of expensive stars, maybe buy a slightly above-average 29-year-old with zero potential to be sold abroad?
However, the match in Teplice showed that it has its justification. In the fall, Slavia was extremely lacking in emphasis and combativeness in outdoor duels. While they didn’t drop a point in Eden, where the seamers win with football, they won only five times, drew twice and lost three times away from ten games.
This is because there is often a war in Slavia’s away matches. Weaker teams cannot match the hegemon of recent years with football skills, so they resort to a parked bus, extreme commitment in fights and kicking the opponent. And stitching can’t cope with that.
That’s why Hronek came, who has no problem with such a game. On the contrary, one could almost say that he excels in it. In the first half, Slavia went to play football at Stínadly. But the home team significantly surpassed the stitched central midfield with aggressiveness, duels and bounced balls. Slavia’s midfield didn’t seem to exist.
Therefore, Trpišovský entered the lineup in the 36th minute, and Pecha and Ewerton were replaced by Hronek and Zafeiris. Experienced Hronek brought some improvement, thanks to him in particular Slavia started to win more duels and also won a lot of balls.
He even had a chance to make the decision and be a complete hero, but a few minutes before the end he failed in the face of Grigar.
“He is an experienced, emotional player. That’s why he went to the match, won a lot of balls. He did a great job in that situation, but unfortunately he didn’t change it. It is the third game for him when he got a big chance. It’s his biggest asset, his getting into goal. Unfortunately he missed three times, this could have been his winning goal.” Trpišovský evaluated Hronka at the press conference.
“It looks bad, maybe it visually devalues its performance a bit. I think he was rightly angry with himself, he felt that the match could have been decided mainly in that chance. It’s okay that he was angry with himself, that’s what I missed from some players in the first half. Such combativeness, living with the struggle,” the coach of Slavia praises the winter reinforcement.
“It’s been a theme for us all season, we thought we’d dealt with it, but it’s still going on. At home and away, we can decide with football, but as soon as it’s a war, it causes us problems. We have to improve it, Hroňas hinted at it, a lot of ball wins were through him,” added Trpišovský, what is Hronka’s strength.
In the next away matches, Slavia will travel to České Budějovice and then to Liberec. Similar scenarios can be expected there, so Hronek will probably be used again.
Source: SK Slavia Prague
