First League starts on Saturday. Its quality extensively increased compared to the previous season
A week after the beginning of Extraliga, we will see the start of the Czech First League. This time there will be a number of former Extraliga players that will warrant interesting games.
Thanks to the decrease in the number of the teams in Extraliga, there will be five teams previously playing in the Czech top league. But we will find former Extraliga players in the remaining three as well so there is no clear outsider. The only exception is likely only Kotlářka who focuses on building the core of their team from the young players.
On the other hand Skokani Olomouc will field experienced national players – Jakub Voják, Martin Schneider, Přemek Chroust and Adam Hajtmar. They will also have Marko Vykoukal on the mound and it would be a surprise not to see them in the Promotion League.
Another team to watch is Jablonec who managed to sign two foreigners. Furthermore, the core of the team is together for couple of years now with an excellent support from the home fans.
In the previous year, five long-term Hroši Brno players had a somewhat rough splitoff from their team. We won’t see these players in Extraliga this year, however, fans of the First League will be able to see them in action as they will play for Hippos. It will be interesting to see whether Michal Ondráček becomes the best batter of the First League. Hippos will also have Jan Kucin or Tomáš Ondra available on the mound.
Two more teams with an ambition to get to the Promotion League are SaBaT Praha and Olympia Blansko. While several players left Blansko and the team itself won’t be coached by the club legend Ivo Kučera anymore, they should still have enough quality to fight for top 4 spot.
Bučovice managed to shock their opponents in the previous years and play in the Promotion league in each of the previous two seasons. This time, however, their road will be much tougher and it would seem that getting top 4 spot is an unreachable goal. On the other hand they could also be the sneaky team that will cause trouble to others.
The last team playing in the First League is Klasik Frýdek-Místek. The only Czech town with a dash in its name built their team on the players that went through their system and so we will be able to see a number of young players in the lineup. Furthermore Klasik will be able to play some of the Arrows players while their youngsters get reps in Extraliga.
