It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MFK Skalica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Podbrezova left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Erik Hamsik to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at MFK Skalica 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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Michal Kroupa is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Richard Ludha 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.
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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at MFK Skalica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Levan Nonikashvili 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Martin Nagy 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.
MFK Skalica asked and MSK Zilina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Viktoria Plzen 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Samba Sall
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 MFK Skalica have had the benefit of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Branislav Niňaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market31 May 2027
Mário Hollý returns from a loan that gave him nothing
0 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
Nobody at MFK Skalica 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at MFK Skalica. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Roman Potočný signs something — a contract at MFK Skalica or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at MFK Skalica would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MFK Skalica is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Richard Ludha 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 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 at MFK Skalica 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.
Richard Ludha 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at MFK Skalica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Branislav Niňaj 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.
Nobody at MFK Skalica 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Martin Nagy has written the date down.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Philip Onyedika signs something — a contract at MFK Skalica or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutAdam Morong asks for a word with the manager