“Football is not a matter of life and death,” the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly famously said, “It’s much more important than that.” It’s a nice quote, and anyone who’s passionate about football knows that when you’re in the moment, watching the game, it feels like an absolute truth.
It’s certainly true for Pepik Hnátek (Miroslav Krobot), the fearsome and moribund coach of Slavoj Houslice, a Sunday league team showing few signs of life. Okresní přebor – Poslední zápas Pepika Hnátka is the feature-length prequel to the popular TV series, focusing on the dour and humourless Mr Hnátek, played with utter conviction by Krobot. If you want to get some idea of Hnátek’s coaching methods, imagine Breaking Bad‘s Walter White if he’d gone into football management rather than becoming a drug kingpin.
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Hnátek is a profoundly unhappy man. His wife had an affair with the club’s president many years before, but they still co-habit, trapped in a loveless marriage. Football is the only thing that Hnátek lives for, but his harsh and unimaginative methods don’t bring out the best in his browbeaten, lacklustre team. His two key players are club captain Jirka Luňák (Ondřej Vetchý), who shamelessly sucks up to Hnátek and grasses up his teammates about how many beers they had the night before, just because he wants to be coach some day; and Jarda Kužel (David Novotný), the club’s most talented player, who suffers from laziness and a bad attitude…
Czech Film Review 