Marked for Rayan Jerbi
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match18 Sep 2027
The wait goes on for Jihlava
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match20 Sep 2027
Jihlava sink to position 15
2 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Adam Kadlec was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rayan Jerbi is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Václav Sejk falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match18 Sep 2027
3 matches without a goal for Jihlava
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match18 Sep 2027
Jablonec left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad20 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Matěj Polidar
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A mark of 5.49 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match31 Jul 2027
4 matches without a win for Jihlava
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Jihlava are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jihlava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Jihlava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matěj Polidar is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match31 Jul 2027
A bad afternoon for Jihlava against Zlin
0‑2 to Zlin, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Václav Sejk gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rayan Jerbi and Jihlava agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Loan watch2 Aug 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Jihlava, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Market2 Aug 2027
Matyáš Miška is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Jihlava has been clear about where Matyáš Miška stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Matúš Lacko: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Jihlava have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Jan Paluska in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jihlava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Marvis Ogiomade falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match30 Jan 2027
Viktoria Plzen left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marvis Ogiomade, and the manager let it.
Market1 Feb 2027
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Marked 5.15, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
5.50 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
OGC Nice say no — this time
The offer from Stade Lavallois for Otis Caporusso was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Sofiane Diop in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OGC Nice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. OGC Nice have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 34030. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ali Abdi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and OGC Nice are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.