Team A were leading 3–0, yet it ended in a draw. Ústí lost their top spot

Whilst the football world is familiar with the term ‘Csaplár’s trap’ – that is, the situation in which the team led by the famous manager Josef Csaplár managed to turn a 0–2 half-time deficit into a 3–2 victory – our players experienced a similar scenario with the opposite outcome in Sunday’s match. Against the young and ambitious manager Petr Mathauser, who is only twenty-eight years old, we were leading 3–0 at half-time, but Česká Lípa managed to score three goals of their own after the break, and the newly promoted side left Ústí with a point, even though the first half had suggested it would be a clear home win.

We had, in fact, managed the opening forty-five minutes brilliantly. Idumbo opened the scoring with a beautiful chip, and shortly afterwards added a second goal. The Gabonese gem Alan Do Marcolino rounded off a dream first half. The stadium’s PA system was already preparing for a more emphatic scoreline, the stands were in a state of euphoria and our team looked utterly confident. This made the turnaround that came after the break all the more surprising.

Česká Lípa came out for the second half as virtually a different team – manager Mathauser made several substitutions, and his players pinned us deep in our own half for the remainder of the match. The visitors fought their way back step by step and eventually drew the match 3–3.

After the match, our manager David Oulehla was clearly frustrated: “It’s a right load of rubbish, I’m really p*ssed off. I apologise for the language. You spend a week working at it, preparing for it, you’re at the ground from six in the morning until six in the evening, and then something so irrational happens. Leading 3–0 and ending up 3–3 – you’ve got to tell yourself you’re a right idiot if you can’t manage that. I take full responsibility.”

Oulehla went on to admit that there had been a sense of satisfaction in the dressing room at half-time, which turned out to be premature: “At half-time, we were saying to ourselves that it had been brilliant; it could easily have been 5–0, but we mustn’t underestimate anything, because all sorts of things happen in football. And unfortunately, they did happen. Now we need to work out why that was the case. The statistics are completely different, so we need to find out why there was such a slump. We weren’t showing the level of activity we should have been; I could see that as early as the 5th or 7th minute. We were slow to close down the opposition; they changed their formation, we reacted to that, and we tried other things too, but nothing worked.”

According to Oulehla, Česká Lípa were simply better in the challenges in the second half: “You can’t play in the Second League without that, and they outplayed us in that respect. I’m not the sort of manager who blames the players. I’m thinking about what I could have done differently – perhaps the substitutions didn’t have the desired effect. I take responsibility for that.”

On the other hand, coach Mathauser was pleased after the match, having led Česká Lípa to a valuable point against one of the competition’s favourites: “I believed we could turn it around; the team has fantastic character and I think they showed that today. We didn’t give up; we discussed how we wanted to respond, and the lads responded brilliantly. We were dominant in the second half; Ústí fell back into a more defensive mindset, and we simply took advantage of that.” He also added that there was a stormy atmosphere in the visitors’ dressing room at half-time: “There was a lot of dissatisfaction with the first half, but the players worked hard and made up for those mistakes. It was louder than usual at half-time, but that was down to the players themselves; I didn’t even have to say much. We’re a newly promoted side who’ve become the first to take points off Ústí, which is great. I think, given how the match went, that point is worth its weight in gold for us.”

Our players now need to put this frustrating draw behind them as quickly as possible – on Wednesday they face a first-round MOL Cup tie in Karlovy Vary, followed on Monday 17 August by a league clash away at another newcomer to the competition, Třinec. However, we won’t be going into that match as league leaders – due to a poorer goal difference, we’ve dropped to second place behind Prague’s Dukla.

• Half-time score: 3–0 to Ústí (Viagem)
• Home goals: Idumbo (2), Alan Do Marcolino
• Final score: 3–3
• Competition: Chance National League
• Opponent: FK Česká Lípa (newcomers to the competition)