Marked for Stanislav Dostál
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
104 days out for Milan Knobloch after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zlin will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.40, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Zlin
Denny Samko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 19 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
A bad afternoon for Zlin against Slovacko
2‑3 to Slovacko, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad5 Oct 2026
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Stanislav Dostál knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Loan watch5 Oct 2026
The goals keep arriving from Lukáš Bránecký’s exile
10 goals in 4 games at Pohronie — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Zlin updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Matej Stanek left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Stanley Kanu — 7.82
Marked 7.82. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Zlin
Michal Fukala and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
Teplice made Zlin work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Denny Samko 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.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Zlin asked and Jihlava said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Zlin hit back inside 3 minutes
Teplice held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Zlin answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
In brief
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Squad
Zlin are still strangers to each other
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
Cletus Nombil is still being punished for one mistake
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Match12 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Zlin
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Zlin are no longer polite ones.
Market14 Sep 2026
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. České Budějovice moved on, Tomáš Hellebrand reports back to Zlin, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Denny Samko 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Viktoria Plzen have kept their man, and Zlin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Denny Samko 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
50 goals for this club, and somewhere in the stand there is a person who can still tell you where they were for most of them.
Match12 Sep 2026
A point taken on 88 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Zlin, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Zlin asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Zlin
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Denny Samko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match29 Aug 2026
Tomáš Schánělec scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Jablonec, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jakub Kolář, and the manager let it.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Michal Cupák is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at Zlin, and it is a cruel one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Zlin
0‑1 against Opava, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $15.0K — a club that wants Serigne Fallou Mbacké Coly enough to be asked twice.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Adam Gaži ran the middle of the pitch — 7.05
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 16 combined actions and a mark of 7.05, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Zlin
Tomáš Wiesner 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Zlin
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michal Cupák was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dukla Prague have kept their man, and Zlin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Zlin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
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Squad
Too much change too quickly at Zlin
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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Transfer targets
A loan move for Jakub Martinec is in the works
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match8 Aug 2026
Chastening afternoon for Zlin
A 0‑3 beating by Viktoria Plzen was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Denny Samko would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Denny Samko is living that version at Zlin, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Michal Fukala and Zlin agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Zlin
Tomáš Wiesner 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Lukas Sykora 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Lukas Barak 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
19 seasons and 307 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tomáš Schánělec arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Tomáš Schánělec has, at Zlin, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Antonín Křapka and Zlin agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Zlin
Michal Fukala 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Antonín Křapka’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Zlin have made the call to Shakhtar. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Lukáš Bránecký has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Zlin.