Marked for Robin Lervik
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Jan 2030
19 matches without a win for Slovacko
The run now stands at 19, and the questions being asked around Slovacko are no longer polite ones.
Match26 Jan 2030
1‑4 to Jihlava, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Market28 Jan 2030
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad28 Jan 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Slovacko may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market28 Jan 2030
“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 The request is on a desk at Slovacko, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market28 Jan 2030
Only the photograph left for Ayrton Unzueta
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ayrton Unzueta will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slovacko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market28 Jan 2030
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Bohemians 1905 moved on, Hyacinth Ogonna Okora reports back to Slovacko, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad28 Jan 2030
Marek Havlík 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.
Player ratings28 Jan 2030
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.68, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Jan 2030
The wait goes on for Slovacko
18 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Boardroom21 Jan 2030
The scrutiny sharpens at Slovacko
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Slovacko is running low.
Squad21 Jan 2030
A one-man rearguard from Milan Heča
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market21 Jan 2030
The bid was some way short and Slovacko did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market21 Jan 2030
“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 Slovacko, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad21 Jan 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Slovacko may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market21 Jan 2030
Only the photograph left for Oğuz Yıldırım
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oğuz Yıldırım will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slovacko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Marek Havlík in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovacko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market21 Jan 2030
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Slovacko will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 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.
Market9 Jul 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slovacko is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad9 Jul 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jaromír Zmrhal and Slovacko agree another 2 years.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Pavel Juroška 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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Slovacko know it.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Marek Lašák 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 Marek Lašák trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match28 May 2029
Slovacko are in real trouble now
Position 16, 15 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market28 May 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.
Squad28 May 2029
Marek Havlík 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 May 2029
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Market7 May 2029
“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 Slovacko, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 May 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marek Havlík and Slovacko agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 May 2029
Marek Havlík in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovacko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market7 May 2029
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad7 May 2029
Milan Heča 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 Milan Heča trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Nov 2028
Victor Halvorsen 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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
“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.
Squad6 Nov 2028
28 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Aug 2028
The unbeaten run reaches 11. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad14 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sarpsborg 08 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Aug 2028
The manager makes an example of Marcus Mehnert
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
A performance of 8.54 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market14 Aug 2028
He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market14 Aug 2028
He is 19, and nobody at Sarpsborg 08 signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Match12 Aug 2028
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad14 Aug 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ástbjörn Þórðarson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.