Saturday, March 12, 2022
Out of Nowhere, Part 2
Prior to their qualification for the 1976 Nations Cup finals, Czechoslovakia had been having a wretched time of it in international football. Their last major tournament had been the 1970 World Cup, at which they had lost all three first-round games. Since then, they had been edged out by Romania in the 1972 Nations Cup qualifiers, and beaten to the punch by Scotland for a place at the 1974 World Cup. At club level, there had been nothing to cheer about since Slovan Bratislava lifted the Cup Winners Cup in 1969. You would be quite justified in saying that their 1976 success seemed to come out of nowhere.
And yet, even before 1976, there were signs that they were not a side to be taken lightly. The 1972 and 1974 qualification battles both went right down to the wire. Many knowledgeable football writers, notably the well-travelled Eric Batty, had paid generous tribute to the technical qualities of Czech players of the time, notably the midfield general Antonin Panenka. But there was still a sense that the Czechs, long respected for their patient, short-passing game, had been left behind by the new pace and flexibility of the "Total Football" era.
If the Czechs were not much fancied at the start of the 1976 qualifying series, a comprehensive 3-0 defeat at the hands of Don Revie's England side in their first match must have confirmed the general estimation of their chances. Although England were kept scoreless for over an hour, they dominated the play from the outset, and never looked in serious danger of conceding. Yet England were held to a frustrating 0-0 draw at home by a nondescript Portugal in their next game, and the Czechs then got into their stride, notching nine goals without reply in their first two home matches, including five against that same Portuguese side.
The crucial game in the group was the return match against England in Bratislava. Mike Channon opened the scoring for the visitors, but two fine goals either side of the interval, both set up adroitly by the winger Marian Masny, gave the Czechs the two points and ultimately saw them through to the quarter-finals. It was an impressive performance, and Masny in particular drew rich praise from the British press, with Revie comparing him, perhaps a tad hyperbolically, to George Best. "England beaten on skill," proclaimed the Guardian.
The Soviet Union, beaten finalists in 1972, awaited the Czechs in the quarter-final tie. In what must have been a particularly sweet victory given the events of 1968, the Czechs prevailed 2-0 at home before holding the Russians to a 2-2 draw in the return fixture in Kiev. The powerful midfielder Jozef Moder was the hero of the tie for the Czechs, scoring two thunderous goals in the away match.
It is somewhat ironic that the shorthand "the Czechs" rolls so easily off the tongue (or the keyboard), since the core of the side that reached the European finals in 1976 was actually made up of Slovakian players. Slovan Bratislava, the club which dominated the Czechoslovakian league at the time, was the home of not only Masny, by now the star of the side, but the entire defensive line. Significantly, both the vital match against England and the quarter-final tie against the Soviets took place in Bratislava, rather than the capital Prague. The coach of Slovan at the time, incidentally, was a gentleman very familiar to Australian football fans...the good doctor Jozef Venglos.
A brief introduction to the rest of the 1976 Czech side (there I go again) seems in order at this point.
Complementing the tricky Masny up front was the centre-forward Zdenek Nehoda, a powerful, tireless figure who played a very important part in the team's success. Moder, the prolific inside-right, would often join these two in attack, with the wily Panenka hanging back and keeping his eye out for a telling pass. Despite the praise heaped on him in the wake of "that penalty", Panenka was actually a relatively peripheral figure in the Czech campaign in Yugoslavia up to that point; his midfield colleagues had shown, on the whole, more energy and enterprise than the side's nominal general.
At the base of the midfield there was a veteran of the 1970 World Cup, Karol Dobias. A fullback in Mexico, he now had the job of screening the back four, and did the job diligently. In the final in Belgrade, he would contribute at the other end as well, in surprising fashion. That left the role of midfield enforcer, which was filled by the blond Jaroslav Pollak, another survivor of 1970. Combative to a fault, he was largely responsible for preventing the Dutch from taking the initiative in the semi-final, although, as we shall see, he eventually took things too far.
The lack of genuine wingers - Masny was always inclined to drift infield - meant that the fullbacks had to be prepared to do plenty of work upfield, and the Slovan Bratislava fullbacks Koloman Gogh and Jan Pivarnik did so. Pivarnik in particular was a marvel of energy, joining in plenty of attacks in addition to his defensive duties.
At the centre of defence, along with the stopper Jan Capkovic - twin brother of another 1970 alumnus - was a player who would become one of the key figures of the event, the Czech captain Anton Ondrus. An inspirational figure at Slovan Bratislava, he was chosen as captain ahead of Panenka for his galvanising qualities, and did not let his coach down. He was to have a truly magnificent game against the Dutch.
In goal, there was the durable Ivo Viktor, who had first played for his country as far back as 1966. Never considered one of the great European keepers up to that point, he was to have a superb tournament, producing a match-winning performance in the final against West Germany. A measure of his performances in Yugoslavia was the fact that this unassuming veteran goalkeeper came third in the voting for Europe's coveted Ballon d'Or - normally the province of outfield players.
The dogma of Total Football had not been adopted fully by the Czechs and their coach Vaclav Jezek, who, interestingly, had spent some time coaching in Holland. The defenders were willing to come forward, and there was a modicum of position-switching in the forward line. Yet there is no doubt that Czechoslovakia were less intent on the new philosophy of constant fluidity than their opponents, and this probably, in fact, worked to their advantage.
In Part 3: the intense, exciting, and occasionally violent semi-final against Holland.
