Fortuna League, Round 29: FC Slovan Liberec – 1.FC Slovácko 3:2

As the first half progressed, Liberec became more active and the chances began to come. After a nice pass from Radim Breite in the middle of the field, Tomáš Malinský got a shot from a sharp angle, but goalkeeper Matouš Trmal handled it well as he did Libor Kozák's header, which came only a few moments later.

Ten minutes before the break, Roman Potočný kicked from a promising place on the field, and in the area he managed to find the head of Taras Kačaraba, who redirected the shot just high of the goal by a few centimeters. As the players of both teams seemed ready to go into halftime without a goal, Roman Potočný was felled in the penalty area after 46 minutes. Libor Kozák took the ball and sent it convincingly inside the right post of Trmal's net and Liberec led 1-0.

With 56 minutes played, the home side almost doubled their lead as Captain Radim Breite flipped the ball in after a cross from the right. Roman Potočný was in the right place and tipped the ball to Trmal.

Slovan continued to carry the play in the second half; however, neither the cheeky solo rush by Mara, nor a 2-on-1 break with Breite and Malinský, nor a hard shot by Kozák which was beautifully caught by Trmal, managed to find the net, so the score remained 1-0 into the 65th minute.

At that point, the guests managed to make the most of their few chances. In the 70th minute, after a direct kick by the unguarded Haris Harba, he got to the head of the small box, and his attempt made Nguyen dive in desperation towards the post, but he was short of stopping Jiří Krejčí.

Fifteen minutes before full time, Libor Kozák scored his second goal from the penalty spot in this game. This time, the kick came after a foul on Tomáš Malinský, who would have otherwise been alone in front of the Slovácko keeper.

Nonetheless, Slovan weren’t able to enjoy their 2-1 lead for long. Slovácko’s two goals were almost identical. After a direct kick by Marek Havlík from the left side, Vlastimil Daníček was alone in front and the unguarded man headed the ball past a helpless Nguyen.

The now frenetic pace continued towards the end of the match, as both teams looked to break the level scoreline in their advantage. In the end, it was Slovan who managed to take all three points from the match. In the 91st minute, the Karafiát was brought down by defender Stanislav Hofmann and the referee ordered the third penalty kick for Liberec in the match. Libor Kozák once again took over, and proved for the third time that he has nerves of steel to complete his hat-trick.

Slováco had no time to react and Slovan held on to win 3-2.