VK Odolena Voda took a clean 3-0 victory against VK Kladno in a club friendly on Saturday. The away side ran out comprehensive winners, with the hosts struggling to find any foothold in the contest. We had backed the home side at 56 per cent confidence, but the match went another way entirely.
And here's the thing — Kladno had looked sharp in their two previous outings. They had beaten Lvi Praha and Jihostatroj České Budějovice both 3-1, ending a barren spell against those opponents. But by then the game had already changed shape, and the visitors showed up ready to take control.
Odolena Voda came into this fixture on a mixed run. They had lost to Jihostatroj 2-0 and fallen to Lvi Praha 3-2, but they also knew how to win — a 2-1 away triumph against Ústí stood out. To be fair, they turned up with something to prove, and that showed in the way they dominated all three sets.
Kladno had dropped points in their last two matches, losing 3-0 to both Lvi Praha and Benátky, before a narrow 2-1 defeat to Liberec. The support of the fans could be called devoted, but that is an assessment, not a fact. What they got was a thrashing that ended a three-match unbeaten run at home.
The result shifts the tone of this friendly considerably. We had expected Kladno to bounce back after those losses, but Odolena Voda had nothing to do all evening and made it look easy. The hosts let the tie slip in the first set and never really recovered, and there was not much to separate the sides after that.
