Marked for Filip Duris
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Aug 2029
5 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.
Transfer targets13 Aug 2029
The deal with Slovan Bratislava is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Richard Ludha 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Oliver Podhorín 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.
Match11 Aug 2029
0‑2 to MFK Ruzomberok, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
The manager makes an example of Viktor Šimić
“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.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by David Mazuch to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings13 Aug 2029
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market13 Aug 2029
Branislav Sokol is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at MFK Skalica has been clear about where Branislav Sokol stands, which is more than many ever get.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets6 Aug 2029
The clubs have shaken hands with Slovan Bratislava; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Player ratings6 Aug 2029
No sign of nerves from Patrik Filippov at 21 — 7.78
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Patrik Filippov did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match4 Aug 2029
4 matches without a win for MFK Skalica
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around MFK Skalica are no longer polite ones.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Richard Ludha 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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
The step up is real for Filip Duris
At 15 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad6 Aug 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Slavomír Pagáč and MFK Skalica agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Words at MFK Skalica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián Bariš 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.
Market6 Aug 2029
The interest is real enough to have reached print. MFK Skalica have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings6 Aug 2029
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Sep 2028
“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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Richard Ludha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at MFK Skalica training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián Bariš 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.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
MFK Skalica asked and Dynamo Kyiv said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market11 Sep 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Filip Duris 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.
Market11 Sep 2028
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Andrej Rusnak 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.
Market11 Sep 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Robert Rusnak is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A performance of 8.18 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match9 Sep 2028
Level with 88 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon MFK Skalica had all but put away. FK Senica will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.