Marked for Aleksa Marković
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market31 Aug 2026
Tomáš Břečka 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 Zbrojovka Brno can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jhon Figueroa 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Zbrojovka Brno training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ondřej Mazuch 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Lukáš Bránecký is 20, and Zbrojovka Brno have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ondřej Čelůstka dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zbrojovka Brno, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match19 Aug 2026
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Banik Ostrava had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Zbrojovka Brno did not stop to explain themselves.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
30 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zbrojovka Brno can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zbrojovka Brno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Filip Vedral. 2‑0 against Sigma Olomouc, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Martin Gjorgievski did not need any: 8.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Zbrojovka Brno did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Stanislav Hofmann and Zbrojovka Brno agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zbrojovka Brno this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
At 21 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Filip Vedral, and the manager let it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Patrik Čavoš 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.
Market3 Aug 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.