You’re probably expecting this week’s article to be full of comment on Scotland’s defeats to Georgia and Germany (and normally if you offered Scottish footballers a combination of the terms ‘double G’ and ‘a couple of humpings’ then both they and the tabloids would be delighted)… but I’ve spent the last 10 days or so in Slovakia, so deal with it.
Don’t get me wrong; I have been online to keep in touch with what’s been happening. I know that Raith Rovers seem to be on commission from Ryan Hardie’s agent to get him a better contract at Rangers. When I left Scotland he was a promising young striker who’d bagged a couple of goals on his debut last season. Since I’ve been away apparently he’s become a goal machine who sends a chill down the spine of the entire population of Kirkcaldy.
As Scotland were losing to Georgia, I was keeping an eye on things via Twitter while also stuffing my face with a very reasonably priced pizza topped with Slovak sausage and Niva cheese in a nice restaurant in Zilina. That may sound like I was lacking in commitment to the Scottish cause, but bear in mind that during my meal I did manage to register as many shots on target towards the Georgian goal as Scotland did during the first half.
In San Marino, Wayne Rooney equalled Bobby Charlton’s scoring record for England and then pledged never to retire from international duty. Of course. What story would Rooney forever be associated with if it wasn’t for people continuing to work at their profession into old age?
Footballing fervour has also been running high in Slovakia as the national team were sitting top of their group with 6 wins out of 6 (and 9 wins in a row including friendlies) before they played Spain. Unfortunately, being a country of around 5.5 million people, known for its mountains and love of alcohol seemed to lend itself to another imitation of Scottishness – hitting the self-destruct button. Early in the match, Robert Mak was clean through on goal but pulled his shot wide… and Spain immediately went up the other end of the pitch and scored. Diego Costa then ensured that the Slovakian goalie, Kozacik, was going to bring him down for a penalty whether the actual movements of Kozacik’s body had anything to do with it or not.
To be fair to Slovakia, they were missing 4 players through injury and suspension, including former Rangers winger Vladimir Weiss and Liverpool’s Martin Skrtel. How big a loss is Skrtel? Well, if you’ve ever thought, “I wonder what Darren Anderton’s up to these days?”, turns out he’s giving interviews to Slovakia’s daily Sport newspaper and putting Skrtel up there with the best defenders in the Premier League.
Slovakia’s match against Ukraine actually took place in Zilina, something I belatedly realised and got excited about. Unfortunately, it was a sell-out and tickets on re-sale websites were going for around 100 Euros. Standing outside the ground looking for a last-minute ticket did occur to me but there’s a time and a place for practising my limited Slovak. In the pub with my wife’s mates around me to step in and smooth over any blunders is one thing. Haggling with ticket touts is another.
Hence, I watched the team on the local Jednotka TV channel again instead. This time I didn’t even venture out to the pub to do so, having found that my body had reacted in a particularly negative fashion to the previous night’s combination of beer and slivovica (Slovakian plum brandy).
This time, there was no hard luck story for Slovakia as they ground out a 0-0 draw that leaves them sitting 2nd in the group and only needing one win from their next 2 matches to qualify. A glance at the Slovakian squad list makes interesting reading. AC Milan, Napoli, Liverpool, Dynamo Moscow and Hertha Berlin crop up among the clubs with Slovaks on the wage bill but there are also players from local clubs. For example, Slovakia ended the game with a striker from unfashionable MFK Ruzomberok (stadium capacity less than 5000) on the pitch.
Perhaps that’s something for Gordon Strachan to ponder as he seems to have all but chucked the notion of picking any Scottish-based player who doesn’t wear hoops. Slovakia seem to have blended their big league and domestic league players into a real unit – couldn’t the likes of Graeme Shinnie be part of the same spirit for Scotland?
Back to Wayne Rooney, who beat Sir Bobby Charlton’s record to become England’s all-time leading scorer. Though they remain level pegging in the rankings for England’s oldest looking player to still be in their 20s.
What a great touch that Roy Hodgson stopped Rooney having the chance to beat Charlton’s goals record in that walkover in San Marino and instead held off so that he could celebrate in style by scoring a soft penalty near the end of a truly sh*te match against Switzerland.
Anyway.
Before I go, it would seem remiss to have been in Slovakia and not discovered anything about a Slovakian player who was a true icon of the Scottish game. I’m going to give you a clue – they played for a Glasgow club.
That’s right, I’m talking about ̶L̶u̶b̶o̶m̶i̶r̶ ̶M̶o̶r̶a̶v̶c̶i̶k̶ Filip Sebo.
Well, thanks to the Slovak magazine Plus 7 Dni, I can report that he’s now playing in the 5th tier of Slovak football with the latest incarnation (FC Petrzalka Akademia) of what were once Celtic’s Euro-conquerors, Artmedia Bratislava. His tale? A fairly bizarre one. Having had a very decent couple of years with Slovan Bratislava, he was offered a new contract by the club (one of the biggest in Slovakia).
The bold Filip decided that he had better options and turned Slovan down to chase a dream of playing in the MLS. No offer actually materialised though. This was in the winter of 2012. Somehow, for the next 2 and a half years while flirting with various possible options (Middle East etc.) he managed to not actually kick a ball (did he ever?) for anyone. He was keeping himself busy though. By growing a horrendous hipster beard.
Now, he’s had some kind of epiphany and has started turning out for Petrzalka. He says that he sees the game differently these days and it’s not about money for him anymore (though nobody’s quite sure how this whole not really making any money thing is working out for him).
Petrzalka are currently playing in a fairly humble new stadium with a capacity of about 1500, which has started getting a lot busier as locals queue for the bizarre sight of a 31 year-old with 15 international caps (and 7 goals!) playing at something just above pub level. Even the beard seems to be working for him as many of the new fans are apparently eligible Bratislava’s ladies hoping to catch the eye of a still famous footballer.
It seems that Filip Sebo may finally have found a level he can score at and in more than ways than one.
Among other TV and radio credits, his football-savvy has meant roles as writer/script-editor on Offside and Only An Excuse (both BBC1 Scotland).
He set up ScottishComedyFC.com in 2011, hosts and produces the Scottish Comedy FC Podcast and is often the fingers behind the tweets on @ScotComFC.
These days, his content-creative and social media skills have led to him working as a content marketing specialist with a top Edinburgh agency. He remains in demand as a comedy writer and this year has been commissioned to write on the BBC Radio Scotland shows ‘The Good, The Bad and The Unexpected’, ‘The Fame Game’ and ‘Breaking The News’.
