Jakub Dovalil, who coached youth teams and the Czech under-21 squad, shares his insights on the challenges Santiago Denia will face as the new head coach of the Czech national team. The first issue is player mentality: 'A footballer would rather hide and fight in a defensive position than try to come up with something. But if they don’t believe in themselves, they are half-hearted.'
Another challenge is the quality of players: 'In Latvia, there are many young foreigners playing in the league, and they might take 17-year-old Africans for a test and play them before selling them further down the line. This is not an ideal system for developing Latvians or Czechs.'
Finally, Dovalil addresses the demanding nature of domestic leagues: 'In the Czech league, players have to be prepared for immense pressure. In youth teams, they moved up categories smoothly, coaches followed with them and had everything under control. Now he starts from scratch in an environment that is unfamiliar to him.'
Dovalil suggests Denia should talk to potential candidates for the national team and try to build a mosaic of skills and personalities. 'Travel around Europe and speak to the players,' he advises.
I expect Denia will face similar issues as Dovalil did when coaching youth teams: 'It’s a small country with a sensitive history, occupied by Soviets then Germans and again for a long time by Soviets. It is a proud nation, but also very closed off. This can be seen in football too.'
