Eduard Sobol 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.
“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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Filip Novák's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jan Schick after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jan Hanuš’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Jablonec needing him to play as if none of it matters.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Jablonec have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Sebastian Nebyla 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Jablonec will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
0-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jablonec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Jablonec can tell you which week it ends in.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Jablonec will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Eduard Sobol 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.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Jan Schick to a room that had heard them before.
“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 Jablonec will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Jablonec will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
At 22 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.
Sebastian Nebyla 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Jablonec, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Saidou Alioum is on it.
Slovan Liberec next, and one man in the Jablonec dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Jablonec will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Jablonec, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marked 8.02. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Jablonec.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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.” Jan Schick, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Success Makanjuola 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Jablonec can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Jablonec until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jablonec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Jiří Sláma has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Daniel Souček’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Jablonec needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A brace, and Jan Chramosta takes the afternoon — 8.54
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jan Chramosta provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jablonec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 3 times before the twentieth minute. Zlin tried to reorganise, Jablonec did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.