“Who will be the coach is being decided now. It is necessary for someone to come who has been coached much more. I have to learn more. The question is whether it will be in the position of assistant, that is still a long way off. The player experience is good, but it’s not enough,” Sokolovsky said.
He moved to the bench at the end of October after Nymburk’s poor start to the season, after which the Latvian coach Roberts Štelmahers, who came in the summer as a replacement for the Slovenian Aleksander Sekulič, was dismissed. Former national coach Pavel Budínský, who led Děčín in the league from 2004 to 2019 and won four silver and four bronze medals with him, became Sokolovský’s assistant.
“He helped me. He had a lot of suggestions and it was up to me whether I would follow it or not. I had the decision-making power. I feel that it is necessary to continue to gather experience,” declared the 45-year-old Sokolovský, who with eleven titles is the second most successful player in the league history after Peter Benda.
The 18-time Czech champions did not go well last year. In the Champions League, Nymburk was eliminated in the group with a balance of two wins and four defeats. In the domestic top competition, he stumbled unusually, suffered 11 defeats in 36 rounds and was eliminated in the play-offs in the semi-finals in the decisive seventh match against Opava.