Marked for Peter Hamsik
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Feb 2032
20 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
The dugout9 Feb 2032
Peter Hamsik: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match7 Feb 2032
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom have 3 straight wins of it.
Transfer targets9 Feb 2032
Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom asked and Tatran Prešov said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vincenzo Battista 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.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
7.99, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad9 Feb 2032
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout9 Feb 2032
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces29 Dec 2031
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom29 Dec 2031
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market29 Dec 2031
“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 The request is on a desk at Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Vincenzo Battista 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.
Boardroom29 Dec 2031
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Duarte Barbosa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings29 Dec 2031
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout29 Dec 2031
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 Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market22 Dec 2031
“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 Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad22 Dec 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vincenzo Battista 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.
Match20 Dec 2031
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout22 Dec 2031
The manager makes an example of Lukáš Domaniský
“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.
Boardroom22 Dec 2031
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The dugout22 Dec 2031
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Player ratings22 Dec 2031
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout22 Dec 2031
The form table has caught Peter Hamsik
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Looking ahead22 Dec 2031
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Zlate Moravce in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Dec 2031
It had gone 20 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Match15 Dec 2031
10 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad15 Dec 2031
Vincenzo Battista 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.
The terraces15 Dec 2031
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Duarte Barbosa has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match13 Dec 2031
A 1‑0 win over MFK Zvolen, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings15 Dec 2031
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings15 Dec 2031
A mark of 7.71, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout15 Dec 2031
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Interim Coach, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Squad15 Dec 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kacper Góralczyk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.