The Mlada Boleslav Chronicle
Market14 Apr 2031
Oliver Velich puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Mlada Boleslav, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad14 Apr 2031
75 days out for Filip Juranka after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Mlada Boleslav will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market14 Apr 2031
Only the photograph left for Jan Žáček
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jan Žáček will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Mlada Boleslav the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad14 Apr 2031
Tempers go at Mlada Boleslav
Denny Samko 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.
Market14 Apr 2031
Lukas Provod steps up from the Mlada Boleslav academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Lukas Provod has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market14 Apr 2031
Mlada Boleslav promote Adam Darida from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Adam Darida has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad14 Apr 2031
Justin Salmon 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.
Squad14 Apr 2031
Kazeem Tesleem wants to go home
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Mlada Boleslav know it.
The dugout14 Apr 2031
Lukáš Červ gets picked when it counts
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 Lukáš Červ is on it.
In brief
- The dugout Denny Samko asks for a word with the manager
- The dugout No hiding place for Ondrej Červenka
- Loan watch The goals keep arriving from David Holzer’s exile