The offer from Spartak Trnava for Tsotne Kapanadze was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what DAC Dunajska Streda can pretend not to have heard.
Samsondin Ouro 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zlate Moravce have kept their man, and DAC Dunajska Streda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simen Juklerød 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.
10 goals in 21 games at Šamorín — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at DAC Dunajska Streda updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. DAC Dunajska Streda will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutNino Kukovec knocks on the manager's door
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Považská Bystrica had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Zlate Moravce have done the hard part with Bayelsa United, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Miroslav Gono 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 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slovan Liberec have kept their man, and Zlate Moravce go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Leonardo Bortoli has agreed terms with Tatran Liptovský Mikuláš for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Miroslav Gono 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.
Stará Ľubovňa next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
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.
10 goals in 21 games at Baník Lehota pod Vtáčnikom — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Zlate Moravce updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A loan enquiry to Slovan Liberec: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Zlate Moravce, and it is not being withdrawn.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Zlate Moravce have had the benefit of it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A 2‑1 win over Slávia TU Košice, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zlate Moravce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑1 to Petržalka, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Zlate Moravce training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vojtěch Kubista 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oscar Destiny trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
209% of the income goes out in wages at Zlate Moravce
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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Zlate Moravce training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vojtěch Kubista 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.
Position 2, 33 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Erik Duris could afford to be generous.
Position 2, 30 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Miroslav Gono 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Dawda Darboe 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Erik Duris, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
209% of the income goes out in wages at Zlate Moravce
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.
Marked 8.08. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Zlate Moravce.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Dawda Darboe was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zlate Moravce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
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 Filip Balaj is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Miroslav Gono’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Zlate Moravce needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Up for the corner, and Miroslav Gono delivers — 7.90
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Miroslav Gono scored, was marked 7.90, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Zlate Moravce training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vojtěch Kubista 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.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Oscar Destiny 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 team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Dukla Banská Bystrica.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Timotej Záhumenský’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Zlate Moravce needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zlate Moravce this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Erik Duris after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Marko Totka’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Zlate Moravce needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zlate Moravce can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sparta Prague keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Miroslav Gono 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 phone has started ringing about Vinícius Kevin again, and this time the name on the line is Púchov. Zlate Moravce are listening politely and promising nothing.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Miroslav Gono. 1‑0 against Slávia TU Košice, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
10 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jakub Kolář is living that version at Zlate Moravce, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
Miroslav Gono 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Dawda Darboe was on a different afternoon to everybody else
10.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.