Marked for Ivan Valjent
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FK Senica have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Jan Bozenik again, and this time the name on the line is MFK Ruzomberok. FK Senica are listening politely and promising nothing.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Karol Duda beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Tom Lockyer
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Eymard Bationo 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. 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.
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put FK Senica out
Out, 0‑0 to Zlate Moravce, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match22 Aug 2026
FK Senica win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. AS Trencin will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Milan Duda is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Milan Duda: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.02 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at FK Senica
Ivan 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Trencin have kept their man, and FK Senica go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and FK Senica did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.68, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market17 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The clubs have shaken hands with DAC Dunajska Streda; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ivan Valjent and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 Aug 2026
Podbrezova made FK Senica work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match15 Aug 2026
FK Senica settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Podbrezova spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Lukas Gyomber had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$1.6M was the most the club would pay and MSK Zilina were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market10 Aug 2026
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ivan Valjent commits to FK Senica for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Ivan 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mario Bonaventura 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
FK Senica asked and MFK Ruzomberok said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
FK Senica have gone to MSK Zilina with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ivan Valjent 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 FK Senica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Erik Suslov has come up in conversations FK Senica were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at FK Senica
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Norbert Strelec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
DAC Dunajska Streda 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.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Ivan Valjent 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 Ivan Valjent trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Miroslav Lobotka after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Market3 Aug 2026
Jan Kucka told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Jan Kucka has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at FK Senica.