Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 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 The request is on a desk at Sparta Prague, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sparta Prague have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Prague they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Jun 2031
Words at Sparta Prague training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Karabec 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.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lukáš Franc will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sparta Prague the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad19 May 2031
Adam Karabec 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.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sparta Prague lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sparta Prague have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sparta Prague is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
In brief
SquadWords at Sparta Prague training over how hard people work
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sparta Prague lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 10.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 9.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings24 Feb 2031
A brace, and Jan Kuchta takes the afternoon — 8.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jan Kuchta provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
13 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sparta Prague lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.35 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Sparta Prague hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Emmanuel Uchenna Aririerisim provided it, and the 9.03 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. 9.18 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sparta Prague is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Sparta Prague and Sigma Olomouc in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The words a physio says slowly. 77 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sparta Prague will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sparta Prague is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
143 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sparta Prague lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sparta Prague have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
152 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sparta Prague lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 126 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 2, 70 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sparta Prague can pretend not to have heard.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Sparta Prague hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Prague they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad18 Mar 2030
Adam Karabec 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.
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.
“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 Sparta Prague, and 0 appearances in 33 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Prague they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Add another name to the list: Baltika have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Martin Stoulil. The answer from Sparta Prague has not changed — yet.
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.
The offer from Pribram for Josimar Alcócer 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sparta Prague is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals and a season average of 7.63 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Words at Sparta Prague training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Karabec 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.
Marked 9.31 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Two goals and a mark of 9.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sparta Prague is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad24 Dec 2029
Words at Sparta Prague training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Karabec 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Adam Karabec. 3‑1 against Pribram, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.30 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.89 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sparta Prague have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
28 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Lukáš Haraslín 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Josimar Alcócer will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sparta Prague the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 10.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
In brief
SquadAdam Karabec falls out with a teammate over standards
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BATE have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Daniil Fomin 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.
In brief
SquadWords at BATE training over how hard people work