Viktoria Plzeň played the third friendly match and in Mariánské Lázně they met the 2nd league team Baník Sokolov, which is under leading of Plzeň´s legend Pavel Horváth. Viktorians won without any conceded goal again.

Pre-season, Wed 27th Jun 2018, 17:00, Mariánské Lázně

Sokolov: 1st half-time: Belaň – Ruml, Stropek, Mišůn (C), Beránek – Kosak, Machek, Hlavatý, Vávra – Glaser – Vašíček.
2nd half-time: Dvořák I – P. Čermák, Jakubov, O. Ševčík, Mejdr – Body, Špaček, A. Čihák, Dvořák II, Vávra (66. Glaser) – Voleský.

Plzeň: 1st half-time: Hruška – Řezník, Pernica, Limberský, Havel – Ekpai (C), Hrošovský, Procházka, Kopic – Řezníček, Krmenčík.
2nd half-time: Šiman – Petržela, Řezník, Limberský, Kovařík – Štursa, Hořava, A. Čermák, Navrátil – Chorý (74. Krmenčík), Bakoš.

Goals: 3. Krmenčík, 68. A. Čermák.
Crowd: 950.

Viktorians quickly took the lead right in the 3rd minute. Michael Krmenčík appeared alone running towards the gate and acted strongly when shooting on Belaň who had no chance. Sokolov´s defender Milan Mišůn could equalize the score but his attempt aimed off the goal. There followed Jan Kosak´s attemp on goal but Aleš Hruška saved it well. On 25 minutes Ubong Ekpai crossed the ball to Jan Kopic who unfortunately kicked above. Jakub Řezníček had an effort on goal later as well as Sokolov´s defender Onřej Ruml but both missed the target, too. Viktoria won the 1st half 1-0.

Pavel Vrba substituted almost all the line-up for the 2nd half. Only David Limberský and Radim Řezník stayed on the pitch. On 59 minutes Jakub Šiman performed excellently against Patrik Voleský. 9 minutes later the red-and-blues got in 2-goals leading. Marek Bakoš´s free-kick shot hit an upright but Aleš Čermák rushed with rebounding behind the goal line! On 76 minutes Voleský also hit the gate, nevertheless, nobody of his teammates was ready there.

Viktoria won the third friendly match wihtout conceded goal.

Pavel Vrba´s Commentary

„We´re happy for the clean sheet. We saved it, however, Sokolov also had two or three goal chances on the other side. We haven´t been completing the starting line-up yet, we substitute a lot and it´s still a pre-season training programme. I´m glad we don´t concede goals but I´m not gonna claim it was perfect,“ Viktoria´s coach says.

Later he commented on the current situation in the team. „Hubník and Hájek should be ready for the upcoming match against České Budějovice. We´re still disscussing the team and in Austria we´d like to have it completed. We´d like to go there in 22 + 3 men, so there will be two more than last year. One of the reasons is also the fact that last summer 5 players injured and we missed them. However, we´ll still have to reduce the number of players to 23 after Austrian camp,“ the head coach of Viktoria reveals the plans.