David Benes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrej Duda 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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Norbert Bozenik left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FK Senica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Andrej Duda 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.
Marked 8.04 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑1, Norbert Bozenik could afford to be generous.
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juraj Mak will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FK Senica the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Juraj Mak has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
David Benes 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.
Position 6, 13 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
David Benes 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Andrej Duda 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.
Marked 8.34 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout5 Oct 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Norbert Bozenik to a room that had heard them before.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Patrik Hrosovsky has come out of that comparison in the side, and FK Senica have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
MFK Ruzomberok made FK Senica work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Andrej Duda was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.45. 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.
Matej Valjent 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 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.” Norbert Bozenik kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrik Bozenik was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kristian Skriniar did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Matej Valjent 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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Norbert Bozenik was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the FK Senica dressing room was either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrik Bozenik was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FK Senica, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Nobody at FK Senica 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.
Successful dribbles: 31. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Spartak Myjava moved on, Juraj Hrosovsky reports back to FK Senica, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. FK Senica will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FK Senica heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrej Duda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marek Mazuch is on it.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Andrej Duda will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at FK Senica escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Samuel Weiss and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Andrej Duda 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.
FK Senica have made the call to AE Kition. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kristian Skriniar did not need any: 8.22, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lukáš Fabiš has, at FK Senica, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FK Senica heard it as anything else.
Patrik Hrosovsky 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrej Duda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.