Jozef Špyrka 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Adrián Lutka is on it.
Slávia TU Košice next, and one man in the Pohronie dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 24 arrived, 19 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Pohronie asked and Zbrojovka Brno said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Matúš Baštek is 20, and Pohronie have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Pohronie than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Nobody at Pohronie will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Elvis Akpooghene Isaac arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Elvis Akpooghene Isaac is living that version at Pohronie, and it tends to show in the first month.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $9.2K — a club that wants Šimon Beňa enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with České Budějovice, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Pohronie have gone to MFK Skalica with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Trencin have kept their man, and Pohronie go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Enzo Arevalo 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.
A 2‑0 win over Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Pohronie have made the call to Zbrojovka Brno. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
AS Trencin have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Samuel Skriniar kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Adrián Lutka 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.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Samuel Greško, 19 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.