- West Ham United to play third pre-season match against FC Slovacko in Austria
- Hammers to face Czech First League side in Rohrbach on Tuesday
- Tore, Antonio, Randolph, Kouyate and Valencia have joined up with squad
When and where?
West Ham United v FC Slovacko (CZE)Pre-season match
Tuesday 19 July 2016, 6pm CEST (5pm BST)
Stadion Rohrbach, Untere Hauptstraße 17, 8234 Rohrbach an der Lafnitz
What's the story?
West Ham United get the friendly matches of their 2016 summer tour to Austria underway on Tuesday when they take on Czech outfit FC Slovacko in the eastern Austrian town of Rohrbach an der Lafnitz.Slovacko are a top-flight Czech side based in Uherske Hradiste and have been members of the First League since 2009, finishing mid-table in eighth last term.
Twice runners-up in their domestic cup, they have spent 14 of the last 16 years in the top tier of the Czech football season.
Coached by former Czech international defender Stanislav Levy, they won 12 of 30 games last term en route to picking up 40 points.
Slaven Bilic’s side have been in Austria since Sunday and will tune up for next-week’s UEFA Europa League third qualifying round tie against Shakhtyor Soligorsk or NK Domzale with three matches in five days.
Following two weeks of solid training and friendlies already this summer in Seattle and North Carolina, the Hammers will be looking to take the next step in Austria.
Team news
Bilic has a large group of players at his disposal in Austria and is expected to mix and match his teams over the three games this week.Darren Randolph is the first of the Club’s players who featured at Euro 2016 to return and he will enjoy game time between the sticks, as will Adrian and Raphael Spiegel.
Enner Valencia has resumed training with the squad following his involvement for Ecuador at the Copa America, and Cheikhou Kouyate is also back after playing in Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers for Senegal this summer.
Meanwhile, Gokhan Tore and Michail Antonio have linked up with the first team squad after missing the tour to the United States.
Any links between the two?
Yes! Slovacko's 20-year-old back-up goalkeeper Vit Nemrava was loaned to West Ham United as a teenager and spent more than a year in the Academy of Football before returning to his parent club.Nemrava, who featured for the Hammers' U18s and Development Squad, has been capped by his country at every age-group level between U16 and U19.
The only other members of the Slovacko squad to have spent any time in English football are goalkeeper Michal Danek, who enjoyed a brief loan spell with West Bromwich Albion from Viktoria Plzen in 2008, but did not feature in the Baggies’ first team, and Macedonian midfielder Velice Sumulikoski.
Sumulikoski was at Ipswich Town between 2008-09 and Preston North End the following year and has 84 Macedonia caps to his name.