Nineteen Players Left for Tel Aviv, Experienced Striker Pecka is Missing
A Boeing airplane of the company Travel Service, filled almost completely, transported the players, the management of the club, journalists and supporters safely from Prague in Tel Aviv in three hours and a quarter of net flying time on Tuesday, December 12, 2006.
The football mission consists of nineteen players: Miller, Kučera, Rolko, Rajnoch, Palát, Šmerda, Kulič, Holub, Matějovský, Kysela, Sedláček, Nesvadba, Vaculík, Ševinský, Brezinský, Abraham, Mikolanda, Poláček and Ordoš. Pecka and Vít had to stay at home because of unhealed muscle injuries.
Journalists interviewed the sports director Zdeněk Kudela for long time and asked him several times whether there were not any concerns about safety of the players and their accompaniment in the Prague Ruzyně airport before departure. When looking from the centre of Europe, Israel seems to be a place where one's life is endangered more than in the remaining parts of the planet. "We have contacted the respective UEFA representatives officially with respect to safety and they assured us that it was unnecessary to fear of anything," said Kudela. The first steps on Israeli ground confirmed it.
Life flows at a quiet pace in the largest Israeli city. Tooting of police sirens does not sound more frequently than in Prague here. The players were welcomed by pleasant climate with temperature of twenty degrees above zero, calm and clean streets, almost perfect organization that failed only at transport of journalists from the hotel to the evening training exercise. The driver of the bus lost his way to Bloomfield Stadium several times in spite of the fact that he asked about it again and again.
