Illustrative photo – Stanislav Levý, the football coach of the 1. FC Slovácko club, spoke at a press conference for the start of the season on July 25 in Uherské Hradiště.
Prague – Football coach Stanislav Levý won the only title in the club's history with Prague Bohemians as a player exactly 40 years ago. According to the former national team defender, the then “Klokans” had what it takes to win the Czechoslovak league more than once. In an interview with ČTK, Levý also recalled that the hard training sessions with the strict coach Tomáš Pospíchal were sometimes over the edge.
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“I don't want to say that the title wasn't a surprise, but the quality of the team at that time was huge. There were a lot of excellent players, it fit together. There were representatives, great competition. We definitely deserved the title that season, ” said Levy.
He feels that Bohemians could have become multiple champions. “Undoubtedly. The team had the quality and strength to ensure that the title was not the only one. On the other hand, I say with exaggeration that if we won more titles, it would not be celebrated and talked about as much as when you have only one,” said the sixty-five-year-old coach.
“In 1985, we were really close to another title, but in the last round we lost at home to Trnava 0:1. Other clubs like Sparta, Dukla or Ostrava also had excellent footballers. And maybe if coach Pospíchal had been more of a psychologist, the titles would have did more. But he has a lot of credit for that alone, just like the players,” added Levý.
He had a “trouble” with his wife because of the championship celebrations. “It was agreed that only the team would go to celebrate without their wives, and in the end it turned out differently. Without my wife, there was only me and about two teammates. So to this day, she can't forgive me for this. I had to somehow make it up to my wife and when I won as a coach title in Albania (in 2012 with Skënderbeu Korcë), she was already present at the celebrations,” said Levý.
The preparation under Pospíchal for the footballers of the Vršovice team hurt a lot. “We trained really hard under him. It turned out that honest hard work is the basis and without it you can hardly achieve any success. But sometimes it was very rough and you could say maybe even over the edge,” said the 25-time international.
He sometimes slightly sabotaged the demanding training sessions with his teammates. “Besides the dumbbells with which we exercised and jumped on the concrete under the grandstand, we also had running vests with steel balls. We sometimes exchanged them for cones so that it wouldn't weigh eight or ten kilos,” admitted Levý.
In 1983, Bohemians also reached the semi-finals of the then-UEFA Cup, where they were eliminated by eventual winners Anderlecht Brussels. “Coach Pospíchal did not field Přemko Bičovský, an irreplaceable player for Bohemka's style and game, which certainly had an effect on the double-header. I am convinced that if we had met Craiova in the semi-finals, we would have made it to the final. But Anderlecht had an excellent team and were more or less beyond us.” said Levý.
The Czechoslovak title and participation in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup puts them on the same level. “I wouldn't make any big difference between the two. I would also point out that in the 1982/83 season, after the quarter-finals with Dundee, I was nominated for the national team for the first time. From my point of view, it was a very successful year,” noted Levý.
Current Bohemians made him happy with fourth place in the last league season. “I sincerely wished it to Bohemians. It's not a title after 40 years, but to show up in Europe again after 36 years is a great success. They did a really good job,” praised Levý's confidant of coach Jaroslav Veselý.
He does not know whether it is realistic for the “Klangaros” to win a title in the Czech league in the next few years. “Sparta and Slavia are very far behind, mainly in terms of financial security and facilities. This is then very difficult for the competition. But even in the past, smaller clubs that were not counted on, such as Liberec or once Plzeň, were able to win the title,” added the former coach of Slovácko, Plzeň , Wrocław or Hanover.
