“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.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Matej Kochan 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.
Denis 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrik Barak 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Juraj Mak did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Ján Gregus 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrik Barak 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.
“I watch every FK Senica game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Zlate Moravce runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
A performance of 8.27 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Lobotka 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FK Senica, and 1 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
0‑3 to Podbrezova, 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.
“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 FK Senica, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 26 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrik Barak 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
6 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Juraj Mak, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.64
A mark of 7.64 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Ján Gregus 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrik Barak 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.96 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Denis 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrik Barak 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FK Senica, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FK Senica can pretend not to have heard.
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Denis Benes: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FK Senica can pretend not to have heard.
Ján Gregus 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Patrik Barak. 1‑0 against AS Trencin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at FK Senica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrik Barak 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
At 22 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.
The name of Viktor Mazuch has come up in conversations FK Senica were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.