Marked for Max Bilać
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 Jul 2030
Karlo Butić has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Jablonec they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market1 Jul 2030
“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.
Market1 Jul 2030
Jablonec say no — this time
The offer from Slovan Liberec for Lucas González 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.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Sebastian Nebyla 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.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Max Bilać is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad1 Jul 2030
Words at Jablonec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Alégué 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 May 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jablonec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market27 May 2030
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad27 May 2030
Words at Jablonec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Cedidla 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces23 Jul 2029
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 10 of the 40 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market23 Jul 2029
Only the photograph left for Lucas González
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas González will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Jablonec the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market23 Jul 2029
“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.
Player ratings23 Jul 2029
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 7.85 for the rest of it.
Market23 Jul 2029
The phone has started ringing about Karlo Butić again, and this time the name on the line is Sigma Olomouc. Jablonec are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Sebastian Nebyla 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.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Max Bilać is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Player ratings23 Jul 2029
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom23 Jul 2029
10 academy players handed senior numbers at Jablonec
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Feb 2029
Nikola Andrić damages knee ligaments — 92 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Ariel Bulacio breaks a bone — 114 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 114 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market26 Feb 2029
Soki Tamura 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 Jablonec can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Feb 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Jablonec may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Jan Chramosta 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.
Market26 Feb 2029
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sebastian Nebyla signs something — a contract at Jablonec or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.