Sigma Olomouc took all three points against Pardubice in the Czech League's fifth round, winning 3:1 at home on Sunday evening. The hosts dominated possession and clinical finishing, while Pardubice's match unraveled after a red card in the sixty-ninth minute.
Two VAR checks cancelled Pardubice ambitions early. Victor Samuel had a goal disallowed for offside in the third minute, then Michal Hlavatý saw a similar verdict in the twenty-ninth. To be fair, Sigma were not without their own worries — Abubakar Ghali picked up a yellow in the seventeenth — but the visitors kept losing chances. Dominik Janošek finally broke the deadlock in the thirty-sixth, and Péter Baráth made it two before half-time in the fifty-fourth.
Abubakar Ghali turned the score into three in the sixty-fifth, and by then Pardubice were down to ten men after Jan Trédl's red card. The visitors tried to stay in it but couldn't find a rhythm. Ryan Mahuta pulled one back in the eighty-eighth, but it was too little, too late. Sigma had nothing to worry about after that.
Sigma controlled the game with 63 per cent possession and created three big chances from nine shots on target. Pardubice managed only one shot on target from five attempts and rarely got out of their own half. The statistics told the story — Sigma passed into the final third 103 times compared to 54 for the visitors.
Both managers made plenty of changes. Sigma brought on Victor Samuel and Matúš Malý in the seventy-sixth, while Pardubice had to make do with ten men for the final fifteen minutes. The yellow cards came thick and fast — five in total, including Louis Lurvink just before the break and Jan Koutný late on.
The result leaves Sigma in fifth place with ten points from six games, while Pardubice remain bottom of the table with just one point. The hosts had won their previous two league matches 2:1, suggesting this performance was no fluke.
