Slovakia World Cup 2010 fan's preview: Paraguay will be make or break [unabridged & Aptured]

You might have come across my Slovakia-centric World Cup preview for the Guardian Fans' Network and some answers might not have made much sense [e.g. why am I worried by Paraguay's striker Lucas Barrios?] - below is the unabridged version of the preview that should put some answers into perspective.

Slovakia v. Costa Rica

A visit to the Pasienky stadium on a warm Saturday afternoon brought back memories from more recent as well as more distant past. Pasienky [Slovak for "pastures"] used to house Inter Bratislava, a club that provided Slovakia with much of its exciting young talent in the late 1990s and the early 2000s [see this "7560 Minutes Later" article for more detail - subheading "Mirage 2000"], a club where three Vladimír Weisses spent parts of their football careers [the eldest won a silver medal at the 1964 Olympic football tournament; Senior is Slovakia's current manager; Junior one of the rising stars of Slovak football], a club that sold its major players and, some years later, ceased its existence, a situation that was repeated earlier on this year with the legendary Artmedia Bratislava. Pasienky is also the last remaining stadium in Bratislava - Artmedia's old stadium was sold for "property development", whereas Tehelné Pole, located just across the road from Pasienky, is awaiting its demolition and should rise from the ashes as the new "National Football Stadium". All in all, it was a very symbolic place for concluding Slovakia's World Cup preparations and Costa Rica, that recently narrowly lost to France [1:2] and beat another World Cup side Switzerland [1:0], seemed like a decent-enough opponent.

World Cup in Slovakia - Part 1 - TV adverts

The World Cup fever is finally on in Slovakia and local TV screens are more and more often filled with adverts that try to make the most out of the debut of the country's players at the tournament.

Slovakia's final 23-man squad named

With only two weeks separating Slovakia from its first-ever World Cup game against New Zealand [15/06 @ 1.30pm in Rustenburg], manager Weiss named his final 23-man squad for the tournament.

Slovakia v. Cameroon

The LED advertising panel could not have put it more bluntly, mixing the words "готовся" and "get ready" - if it did not bear the logo of Russia's 2018-2022 World Cup bid, it would  reflect what was about to happen on the pitch of Klagenfurt's Hypo-Arena. The stadium, filled nowhere close to its maximum capacity, hosted two teams that would most definitely not have met under any different circumstances. With preparations for the World Cup reaching their peak, Weiss's Slovakia and Le Guen's Cameroon locked horns in a game that was supposed to provide answers to some pressing questions.

It is the Final Countdown!

With only two weeks to go until the start of the World Cup, it is about time to wake this blog up from its hibernation. I have been rather tardy with keeping it up to date, relying mostly on Twitter as I was busier than anticipated with some other things. At the same time, Slovak press has been relatively calm, and the Slovak football scene without any major developments, so you have not missed out on much.

Slovakia v. Norway

With 99 days and 7 hours left until the long-awaited kick-off, Slovakia donned slightly redesigned World Cup tops and faced Norway in the first of three pre-WC friendlies. Manager Weiss had to do without a couple of key players, Liverpool's centre-back Martin Škrtel [broken metatarsal] and VfL Bochum's Stanislav Šesták [back injury], whereas Norway's Olsen missed John Carew, sidelined with a knee injury. This game was seen by many as preparation for the must-win game against New Zealand - most fans were not prepared to settle for anything less than a win. Instead, Slovakia displayed its clinical weaknesses, namely sloppy defending and inefficient attack, failing to convert numerous clear-cut chances. The lack of the squad's depth is a constant problem - without Škrtel's support, his fellow centre-back's [Ján Ďurica] performance suffers significantly, and it was after his defensive blunder that Norway scored the only goal of the game. Šesták is similarly influential upfront - afterall, his 6 goals made real difference during the World Cup qualifiers [especially these two against Poland].