Marked for Viktor Duda
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jul 2027
Norbert Lobotka damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
$870.0K settles it between the clubs for Petar Zajc
NK Domzale have accepted the money. What FK Senica do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Market12 Jul 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FK Senica is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Miroslav Pekarik 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Rodrigo Samarra is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomas Gyomber 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.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
FK Senica asked and Fakel said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market12 Jul 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. FK Senica have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Krasnodar 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces21 Jun 2027
Anger at FK Senica spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad21 Jun 2027
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FK Senica lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom21 Jun 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at FK Senica
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at FK Senica is running low.
Match21 Jun 2027
FK Senica sink to position 10
19 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market21 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market21 Jun 2027
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Spartak Myjava had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Squad21 Jun 2027
The medical room confirms 19 days on the sidelines for Ondrej Pekarik, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad21 Jun 2027
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Tomas Gyomber 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
Marek Valjent has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FK Senica they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Partizan keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Boardroom14 Jun 2027
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Miroslav Pekarik 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.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Zlate Moravce wanted more than $50.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad14 Jun 2027
A move Luka Gegeshidze would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Luka Gegeshidze is living that version at FK Senica, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad14 Jun 2027
A row about effort at FK Senica
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tomas Gyomber was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Moscow have kept their man, and FK Senica go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market14 Jun 2027
The name of Viktor Duda has come up in conversations FK Senica were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FK Senica have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A row about effort at FK Senica
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tomas Gyomber was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at FK Senica
Andrej 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Viktor Duda and FK Senica agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Ivan Strelec 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 Feb 2027
Arise Ogundare asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.