Czech side pull off huge Conference League shock just months after Rangers win.
Just months after dumping Rangers out of Europe in the Conference League qualifiers, Jablonec pulled off an even bigger shock by holding high-flying English Premier League outfit Brighton to a 0-0 draw on Thursday night.
Hailed as one of the greatest results in the history of the Czechia outfit, their head coach Lubos Kozel admitted pre-game that it would take a “miracle” for his side to get a result against the Seagulls, who entered the game on the back of a six-game winning run in all competitions that included victories against Arsenal and Manchester United.
Fresh off the back of a 5-0 home win over rivals Crystal Palace, Brighton are the Premier League's top scorers with 23 goals in their opening seven league games. However, they were unable to find a way through a stubborn Jablonec defence that held them to their first scoreless game in ten outings, despite Brighton having 26 shots on goal and 72 per cent possession at the Stadion Strelnice, which holds just 6,280 supporters.
Having started and scored in last week’s 4-0 thrashing of FK Kauno Zalgiris in their opening Conference League fixture, former Celtic star Matt O’Riley was given another chance to impress on the right-hand side of a front three, but he was unable to find a way through a stubborn Jablonec defence.
A major success at Parkhead following a £1.5million move from MK Dons in January 2022, O’Riley won three Scottish Premiership titles, two Scottish Cups and one Scottish League Cup in his two-and-a-half-season spell. He became Celtic’s record transfer sale when he signed for Brighton in a deal reported to be over £26million. His move started disastrously, though, with the Danish international suffering an ankle injury just nine minutes into his debut, forcing him to undergo surgery and ruling him out for three months.
“We based [our tactical preparation] on the fact that they play one line-up in the Premier League and another in the League Cup and European cups, so we assume there will be players who played a week ago against Kaunas,” admitted Jablonec boss Kozel, before he jokingly admitted he had “called Chelsea” for advice, with the Blues the only team to beat Fabian Hurzeler’s side this term.
“This result will go down in the history of the club. Given the quality and form of the opponent, this is the best result of my coaching career. A point must be accepted with humility. Brighton are not just an English Premier League club, but one of the dark horses of the tournament.”
Following the shock draw, Brighton head coach Hurzeler said: “We did not play on our highest level, Jablonec defended well and defend box well, good movement in transition. We had a lot of ball possession. We had a lot of crosses, a lot of patterns, a lot of play around their box. In the end we have to give also credit to Jablonec, how they defended.
“Of course the longer the game went the more space they had for making transitions. We were trying to push hard for scoring the goal. Then of course they also had the spaces where they can make counter-movements and they were also quite effective and in certain moments we were lucky.”
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