Captain wants Czechs to avail of target practice

CZECH REPUBLIC captain Tomas Rosicky has backed his team’s strikers to regain their confidence in tonight’s Group D home fixture against San Marino ahead of Wednesday’s trip to Lansdowne Road.

None of the four strikers selected by coach Karel Bruckner have scored in a senior competitive match since the 3-0 win over Slovakia on September 6. Rosicky is hoping that first-choice pairing Jan Koller and Milan Baros can fill their boots against San Marino, whose last outing ended in a 13-0 loss to Germany.

“It should be good for our forwards that we are playing against a weaker opponent before the Ireland game,” said Rosicky. “They need some goals and if they score a few it will make them feel a lot better.”

Bruckner has admitted that the build-up to the San Marino game has been dominated with training and tactics sessions focused on the trip to Dublin. “Wednesday’s game will be the toughest out of the four qualifiers we are playing this year,” he said. “The Irish side have very good players, like Robbie Keane, Clinton Morrison, John O’Shea, Kevin Kilbane and Damien Duff. “They are also very experienced and most of them have won over 30 caps. So they are used to playing with each other.”

The Czechs already have a 100% record in the group, after beating Wales at home and Slovakia away last month. Their all-time leading goalscorer Jan Koller will start tonight despite struggling at his new club Monaco, where he has scored one goal in eight games. He will be joined by Milan Baros, in the squad for the first time since the World Cup and back on good terms with his national press since they published pictures after the World Cup of him drunk in a bar.

Baros has been recovering from a foot injury and is yet to start a league game for Aston Villa this season. He did score four goals in two reserve matches and is keen to add to his international tally of 27 goals this week.

“I feel good, my physical condition is back to normal now,” Baros said. “I have scored some goals for the reserves and am happy to be here with the national team again.”

Bruckner had been criticised for not picking enough players from the Czech league so when Ajax midfielder Tomas Galasek and Rangers’ Libor Sionko pulled out through injury, he called up Martin Abraham from Mlada Boleslav and Zdenek Pospech from Sparta Prague to replace them. Abraham may start tonight while David Lafata, the Jablonec forward who marked his international debut with both goals in last month’s 2-1 win over Wales, is expected to play some role.