Marked for Norbert Bese
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Oct 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 MFK Skalica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Tomáš Smejkal 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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Erik Daniel, and the manager let it.
Match23 Oct 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Juan Pablo Ramírez. 1‑0 against Zlate Moravce, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at MFK Skalica.
Squad25 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Norbert Bese and MFK Skalica agree another 3 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Sep 2027
No end in sight to MFK Skalica's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at MFK Skalica has to find a result from somewhere.
Market20 Sep 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what MFK Skalica can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maher Hakami is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market20 Sep 2027
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Norbert Bese gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Norbert Bese has just signed for MFK Skalica, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A club back home comes in for Martin Mášik
The enquiry everybody at MFK Skalica was hoping would not arrive has arrived. He has never pretended he did not want to go back, and now there is somewhere to go back to.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Peter Guinari 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 ratings20 Sep 2027
Defensive actions: 17, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Market20 Sep 2027
He is 18, and nobody at MFK Skalica signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad13 Sep 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 Haladas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Saud Al-Ruwaili is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match11 Sep 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad13 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Aldair Arnedo
“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 ratings13 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
A mark of 5.56 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Marked 5.66, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
An afternoon Daniel Dibusz will want back
Marked 5.80. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match25 Aug 2027
Haladas through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Honved, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match28 Aug 2027
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Haladas found something the first half had given no notice of, and Puskas Akademia could not hold what they had.
Match25 Aug 2027
Norbert Bese wins it after the whistle should have gone
100 minutes played. Norbert Bese found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Honved went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad30 Aug 2027
There were 8 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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.84, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A brace, and Garang Kuol takes the afternoon — 7.67
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Garang Kuol provided it, and the 7.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad30 Aug 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 Haladas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match28 Aug 2027
It finished 4‑3, and it was Norbert Fiola’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Haladas.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Norbert Dibusz is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.