Marked for Samuel Pikolon
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Jihlava lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market4 Jan 2027
Pavel Soukup hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Jihlava can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The season belongs to Jiří Panoš
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Jihlava have had the benefit of it.
Market4 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Jihlava have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ayomide Abatan is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Jihlava can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“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.
Market4 Jan 2027
Everyone has stopped pretending: Opava will make the call about Tyrese Omotoye this week. Jihlava have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Market4 Jan 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Miroslav Křehlík
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jihlava lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Jiří Panoš, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.78
A mark of 7.78 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market7 Dec 2026
As if he never left: Petr Breda returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Petr Breda is a Jihlava player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Jihlava
David Látal and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Petr Breda arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Petr Breda has, at Jihlava, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Jihlava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hale Lombard 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.
Market7 Dec 2026
Hale Lombard 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 Hale Lombard stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Samuel Pikolon
“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.
Match5 Dec 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Jiří Panoš’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Jihlava.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Oct 2026
Jihlava out of the cup
Sparta Prague ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market2 Nov 2026
Hale Lombard hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Jihlava can pretend not to have heard.
Match31 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Jihlava
7 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match31 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Jihlava
7 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Jihlava can tell you which week it ends in.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Dominik Farka: 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
The Jihlava board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad2 Nov 2026
David Látal 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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Samuel Pikolon
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Oct 2026
“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.
Match24 Oct 2026
5 matches without a win for Jihlava
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Jihlava are no longer polite ones.
Match24 Oct 2026
5 matches without a goal for Jihlava
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad26 Oct 2026
David Látal 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
David Štětka 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Too much change too quickly at Jihlava
15 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
Samuel Pikolon knocks on the manager's door
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Match
Point won or two lost for Jihlava?
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
Slavia Prague B will want this one forgotten quickly: 7‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Jihlava were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Adam Pešek takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Tomáš Franěk takes the afternoon — 8.30
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tomáš Franěk provided it, and the 8.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.03, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad10 Aug 2026
André Leipold gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. André Leipold has just signed for Jihlava, and for once the answer mattered.
Market10 Aug 2026
Jihlava spend $850.0K to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $850.0K has been paid because David Látal is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Viktoria Plzen 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Lawrence Nicholas 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vít Beneš and Jihlava agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Vít Beneš 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Jihlava
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvis Ogiomade was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Michal Záhradník has come up in conversations Jihlava were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.00, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.