It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at České Budějovice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at České Budějovice, another week without a signature from Lukáš Havel.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Stanislav Jankto to a room that had heard them before.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tomáš Vlček signs something — a contract at České Budějovice or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Jablonec go through and České Budějovice go home, 2‑4 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between České Budějovice and Jablonec, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. České Budějovice will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
8.01. 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.
Christophe Kabongo 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.
“I watch every Mlada Boleslav game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at České Budějovice runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vojtěch Vorel and Mlada Boleslav agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Fišl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Matěj Hybš’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Mlada Boleslav needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mlada Boleslav know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mlada Boleslav, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Mlada Boleslav 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.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Martin Pastornický 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.
17 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
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.
Jihlava next, and one man in the České Budějovice dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tomáš Vlček signs something — a contract at České Budějovice or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
7 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.96 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Jude Sunday, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Mick van Buren 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.
A 3‑1 win over Ústí nad Labem, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
32 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Stanislav Jankto kept it short after the 3‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
$37.0K was the most the club would pay and Slavia Prague were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Martin Králik 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.
Samuel Grygar 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 86. Slovan Liberec had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
9 combined actions and 6.51. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“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 Mlada Boleslav, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Mlada Boleslav will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Victor Udoh obliged against Jihlava. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is České Budějovice.
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 České Budějovice, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at České Budějovice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Chrudim have kept their man, and České Budějovice go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.90 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Lukáš Letenay takes the afternoon — 8.87
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lukáš Letenay provided it, and the 8.87 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marek Havran, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 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.
Lukáš Letenay 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mlada Boleslav are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Martin Králik 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.
The name of Tomáš Horák has come up in conversations Mlada Boleslav were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
A point taken on 97 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.