Edmunds Novickis and Arkadijs Birjuks travelled to Czechia for “Futbolbumbas” to enjoy some local football as well as to speak with three Latvian players who recently moved to three different clubs there. Kristers Penkevics has joined FC Zlín from FS Jelgava, Marko Regža has arrived at FC Hradec Králové from Riga FC, and Rihards Matrevics has joined from his ‘exile’ at Auda and, unlike the other two, has been in the country since last summer, already managing 18 league matches for struggling Dukla Prague and even keeping four clean sheets.
The trio describe the same league from their different perspectives as a place where running and duels dominate, where training weeks can be built around fitness blocks, and where adaptation is measured in details like language, timing and understanding how a new team plays.
Penkevics’ move to Zlín, as those who follow Latvian football will recall, happened almost overnight. “Everything happened very quickly after New Year. They told me two days in advance when I had to go to Zlín,” he says. He trained for around 12 days, played a half of a match, and promptly got injured. He still went to Turkey with the squad believing that the problem wasn’t serious, but he says it flared up whilst there, which extended his recovery time considerably. Still, there is light at the end of the tunnel for Latvia international – three days before Novickis spoke to him again, Penkevics had a follow-up ultrasound. “Everything is fine… I’ve started running again,” he says. “I don’t want to set expectations in terms of exact days”.
The early training schedule shaped his first impression of how Czech clubs work. “The first nine days were only fitness,” he says. “of those nine, I only got to work with the ball for two days” plus a match in between. The comment he heard from teammates summed up the tone: “Here it’s only running, not football.” Penkevics does not argue with the premise. He calls it “a very physical league” where “the physical parameters dominate”, with a lot of duels and a lot of running, and a style that is both very vertical and very open.
At Zlín he is being set up as a holding midfielder. “A six in football language,” he says, describing himself as “a worker”. Zlín plays 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 but the midfielders are asked to do the same job in both set-ups. “We’re all box-to-box players,” he remarks. “You always have to be in the attack… and you also have to be back in defence.”
Penkevics is optimistic about his prospects after recovery is complete. “You can stick here if you win your duels on the pitch,” he says. “And you don’t need to complicate the game.” He adds: “I honestly see myself as a starting player,” while accepting that settling into a Czech-speaking dressing room takes time. “Everything happens in Czech,” he says, though he adds he can understand most things and the squad helps.
Regža is trying to solve a different problem – how to score in a team that does not supply chances in the way he was used to in Riga. He says the Czech environment suits him in general, but he also says his style requires more time. “This team doesn’t cross and get into the box as much as Riga,” he says. “I have to adapt to them… more me.”
His clearest description of the adjustment came after a match where Hradec defended deep and he led the line all alone. “I felt a bit… pointless,” he admits, adding that he still helped in defence and was told that he had run 6.7km by half-time.
He contrasts his two early league experiences. A week earlier he debuted in the starting XI against struggling Dukla in a 3-0 win. In a later 0-2 defeat against stronger opposition – Sparta Praha – he says the match felt “like day and night”. In the Dukla game, he says there was less running and opponents often pressed and then “immediately cleared it”. In the other match, the opposition controlled the ball and forced longer spells without possession. “It’s good to get experience from games like this,” he says, pointing out that last August, with Riga in the Conference League qualifiers, he played on the same ground for only “10 minutes or even less”.
Regža is also blunt about deficiencies in team cohesion. “I think it’s still a long way to good chemistry,” he says. He describes what he is still learning – where the free zones are, which passes different teammates look for, and how match behaviour differs from training. “Training and games are very different,” he says, adding that in matches “more people take things on individually.” He says that can mean creating chances for yourself.
Competition for minutes is intense because Hradec often use 5-4-1 and pick just the one striker. “There are three who can play,” Regža says: Dutch veteran Mick van Buren, himself, and a local Jakub Hodek. He says the three rotate in training and the coach decides close to kick-off who is readiest. “Right now he trusts me,” Regža says. He also explains what is missing so far. “So far it’s hard to even get to a 100% chance,” he says. He expects the first goal to change how the teammates see him and hopes it comes soon so they “emphasise passing to me and understand that I can score.”
Goalkeeper Rihards Matrevics speaks from the other end of the pitch, and from a club where confidence has been the issue as much as results. Dukla changed coach after a drop in form and Matrevics says that, while the season began with energetic and “tight” matches, the team struggled to gather points. Then, they had gone through a “completely hopeless” run of games where “the team lacked energy”. He describes the mentality as having “settled down a bit” and concludes that “changes were needed”.
He does believe that the squad has enough quality to survive. He points to transfer values and budget comparisons as signs that the team should be capable of more than the last place they currently occupy with 15 points from 22 games. “Something just wasn’t clicking,” he says. “We needed something new”. With a bit more experience in Czechia than Penkevics and Regža, Matrevics also admits that “this year the league is stronger” and there is no obvious team trailing at the bottom.
For Matrevics personally, the season has been complicated by the team’s level of performance. He says he finished last year on a strong note, but “this year it has been hard to show yourself” because the team’s performances have been weak. He notes the goalkeeper’s separation from the what is happening further up the field, but says he cannot be overly critical of his own matches. “I always want to take the next step,” he says, adding he does not see playing for Dukla as an end point.
The club’s reset has also sharpened competition within the goalkeeper group. Dukla now have four goalkeepers and two goalkeeper coaches. Matrevics says he likes the current training process and expects standards to rise through competition. After one of the first sessions under the new staff, the coach gathered the goalkeepers and told them to support each other but also to expect constant competition because there will be no fixed number one. “So we don’t relax,” Matrevics says, describing the message.
Czech football also demands adaptation away from football. As Penkevics is adjusting to a Czech-speaking environment at Zlín so does Matrevics say that his coach now speaks Czech to him. “I say ‘Rozumim’,” he says. He explains how it works – you catch a few words and start figuring out the meaing, plus tactical language is familiar enough to follow quickly.
Matrevics says Latvian players in Czechia tend to help each other with day-to-day matters. “Taxes… cars,” he says, describing the topics that come up when they meet. He says he is happy to see more Latvians taking steps abroad and hopes it helps raise the national team level over time.
Penkevics hears the same reputation being built in conversation inside his own dressing room. He says teammates know Latvian players they have faced and says Raimonds Krollis is mentioned most, including by a teammate who has played with him. He draws a line under what matters for new arrivals like himself and Regža. “First of all, we have to show something,” he says. “We have to prove ourselves.”
Sources:
https://youtu.be/h2I1gYyZVwY?si=IVT-5Iv9dnRNucVM
https://youtu.be/uyqNXtrBVh4?si=iBekBys4torYFdqN
https://youtu.be/80F-Mcwov7Q?si=zoK1iMltUVHrIYqL
