Marked for Daniel Stanek
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Jun 2029
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Slovan Liberec waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sigma Olomouc is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market18 Jun 2029
“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.
Market18 Jun 2029
Filip Vaško hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sigma Olomouc can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout18 Jun 2029
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Squad18 Jun 2029
Fabijan Krivak 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.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Words at Sigma Olomouc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Péter Baráth 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.
Boardroom18 Jun 2029
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Tyrese Omotoye has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Sigma Olomouc have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
The dugout18 Jun 2029
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Market18 Jun 2029
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Sigma Olomouc will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout21 May 2029
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad21 May 2029
Péter Baráth 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.
Squad21 May 2029
Abubakar Ghali 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.
The dugout21 May 2029
news_b_reunited_with_his_manager
The dugout21 May 2029
“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.
Squad21 May 2029
Daniel Stanek has had enough of the bench
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Sigma Olomouc will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout21 May 2029
Dario Grgić has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sigma Olomouc will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market21 May 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Péter Baráth’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad21 May 2029
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Sigma Olomouc have no good answer.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
Successful dribbles: 33. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match12 Feb 2029
Full time on the season at Sigma Olomouc
Position 12 on 26 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Market12 Feb 2029
Only the photograph left for John Dembe
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. John Dembe will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sigma Olomouc the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Péter Baráth 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 Sigma Olomouc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Feb 2029
The shirt still fits. Tomáš Huk is back at Sigma Olomouc, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Dominik Janošek 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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
No place for Tomáš Huk in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sigma Olomouc are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Squad12 Feb 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Stanek and Sigma Olomouc agree another 4 years.
The dugout12 Feb 2029
Jakub Surovčík has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sigma Olomouc will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match14 Feb 2028
Full time on the season at Sigma Olomouc
Position 13 on 24 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Nobody could get near Jáchym Šíp
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Feb 2028
72 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market14 Feb 2028
So close: Lukas Cerny’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Zlin moved on, Lukas Cerny reports back to Sigma Olomouc, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Péter Baráth and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ján Minárik was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match12 Feb 2028
Banik Ostrava left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
Péter Baráth 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.
Market14 Feb 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vaclav Soucek 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.