Courtesy: UEFA.com


Mares brothers miss out for Czechs

Monday 11 January 2010

by Ladislav Josef from Prague

The Czech Republic will be missing two key players for the UEFA European Futsal Championship after brothers Roman and Michal Mares were left out of their finals squad due to injury.

Pair out
Roman, 34, and Michal, 33, have both played in the last four final tournaments for the Czech Republic, including their run to the 2003 semis, and have 81 international goals between them. However, both were unavailable to coach Tomas Neumann when he named his squad as they prepare to meet Azerbaijan and hosts Hungary next Thursday and Saturday in Group A in Budapest. However, 96-goal leading scorer Martin Dlouhy and Czech player of the year Lukas Resetar are included.

'Big loss'
"It‘s a big loss for us, nevertheless we have players, who are able to replace them and advance from the group," said Neumann, whose side were missing the Mares brothers in their autumn friendlies, drawing twice with the Netherlands but losing to Russia, Poland and Slovakia. „We were not in top form, but it improved step by step and we played out two good first halves in the games against Russia in December."



Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com