Marek Suchý 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.
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 Ivan Schranz is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Slavia Prague know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slavia Prague is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slavia Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Slavia Prague game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Naftan runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lukáš Provod signs something — a contract at Slavia Prague or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Slavia Prague will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Slavia Prague would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Slavia Prague that is a harder question to answer.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Slavia Prague will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
In brief
The dugoutMarek Suchý knocks on the manager's door
“The easiest signature of my career.” Michal Sadílek and Slavia Prague agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Patrik Horváth is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Slavia Prague would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Position 5 on 38 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Slavia Prague have no good answer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Slavia Prague have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
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 Ivan Schranz is on it.
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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Petr Schick was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Slavia Prague dressing room was either.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Pardubice defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“I did not go to Sigma Olomouc to sit and watch. I want to come back to Slavia Prague and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lukáš Provod. 1‑0 against Sigma Olomouc, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.14 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Petr Schick could afford to be generous.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Slavia Prague $19.0K. Divine Teah left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Lukáš Provod has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.48 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Minute 89, against Viktoria Plzen, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Half the programme played, position 9, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Something was said to Tomáš Holeš and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“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 Slavia Prague, and 2 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until David Zima signs something — a contract at Slavia Prague or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is David Jurásek’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Slavia Prague needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Daniel Šmiga is on it.
5 goals in 13 games at Slovan Liberec — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Slavia Prague updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Slavia Prague, and both men came out saying it was fine.
8 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.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
At 21 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Slavia Prague is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“I did not go to Sigma Olomouc to sit and watch. I want to come back to Slavia Prague and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Petr Schick after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Ange N'Guessan
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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.
“I watch every Slavia Prague game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Zlate Moravce runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jindřich Staněk signs something — a contract at Slavia Prague or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Tomáš Holeš’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Slavia Prague needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
7 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Slavia Prague can tell you which week it ends in.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slavia Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Slavia Prague will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
Player ratingsIvan Schranz beats them one at a time