Christián Herc and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Michal Cupák 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.
Something was said to Jakub Černín and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Michal Fukala and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Michal Cupák 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stanislav Dostál, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
David Machalík was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jiri Holes was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Zlin dressing room was either.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Jiri Holes was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Zlin dressing room was either.
8 goals in 12 games at Opava — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Zlin updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zlin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michal Cupák was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Prince Chibuzor Emmanuel is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Zlin and Sparta Prague in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Zlin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michal Cupák 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.
Position 16 and 3 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 7.39, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michal Cupák 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.
Jakub Kolář 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Christián Herc 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michal Cupák was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Jiri Holes left the room before anybody could ask which.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antonín Křapka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Opava go through and Zlin go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Zlin, and it is not being withdrawn.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $30.0K — a club that wants Marek Naskos enough to be asked twice.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Zlin have done the hard part with Mlada Boleslav, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Zlin offered $29.0K; Slavia Prague said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michal Cupák was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The deal with Sparta Prague is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
$28.0K on the table at Slavia Prague. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michal Cupák was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jakub Kolář and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Mlada Boleslav kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Zlin will be asked about the last half hour all week.
19 seasons and 307 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Michal Cupák takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Michal Cupák provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.89 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.95 for the rest of it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Vojtěch Patka is living that version at Zlin, and it tends to show in the first month.