Marked for Dávid Balog
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malženice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
Artem Tyshchuk 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.
Squad24 May 2027
A muscle injury and 14 days out for Dávid Balog
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Malženice will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The dugout24 May 2027
Martin Chudý knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Martin Chudý trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout24 May 2027
Dávid Balog gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market24 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Malženice know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 May 2027
Words exchanged at Malženice
Matouš Varačka 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.
Squad17 May 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Malženice can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad17 May 2027
Marek Fábry 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 dugout17 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matouš Varačka, and the manager let it.
Boardroom17 May 2027
119% of the income goes out in wages at Malženice
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The dugout17 May 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad26 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malženice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Apr 2027
A row about effort at Malženice
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marek Fábry was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Martin Turanský, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Artem Tyshchuk knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Artem Tyshchuk trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market26 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Malženice know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Malženice may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words exchanged at Malženice
Matouš Varačka 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A row about effort at Malženice
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marek Fábry was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artem Tyshchuk, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Malženice will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
Market29 Mar 2027
Marek Fábry linked with a move away
The name of Marek Fábry keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Malženice say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Malženice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Mar 2027
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
Wages eat 149% of everything Malženice earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Malženice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Philipp Schuck 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.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Marek Sokol gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Martin Chudý has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Malženice 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Nov 2026
The drought breaks for Malženice
14 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Slovan Bratislava U21 were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Match7 Nov 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Slovan Bratislava U21, and it could have been more.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Samuel Bero out for 32 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Malženice will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad9 Nov 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Malženice
Boris Druga 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A performance of 9.77 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Sonny Yvars arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Sonny Yvars has, at Malženice, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Match7 Nov 2026
Malženice settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Slovan Bratislava U21 spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A performance of 8.20 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.