Milan Rehuš 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at FC Košice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osman Kakay 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at FC Košice would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Where he used to play does most of his talking for him at FC Košice. The room defers to it, the kids study it, and the only thing that can puncture it is a bad month.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Košice, and both men came out saying it was fine.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and AS Trencin were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Magda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Košice the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Mátyás Kovács 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levski have kept their man, and FC Košice go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Matej Madleňák 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at FC Košice has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
The dugoutKevin Dąbrowski has become a man the manager trusts
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FC Košice have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Košice can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Košice have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
FC Košice and Tatran Prešov have settled on $230.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Košice have done the hard part with Spartak Moscow, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Tatran Prešov will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Landing Sagna has pre-agreed a move to FC Košice, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. DAC Dunajska Streda have kept their man, and FC Košice go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Milan Rehuš, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Košice have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Mátyás Kovács 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Košice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.35 — 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.
Edin Julardžija and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at FC Košice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mátyás Kovács 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Spartak Trnava in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at FC Košice. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at FC Košice the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around FC Košice are no longer polite ones.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at FC Košice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mátyás Kovács 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at FC Košice can tell you which week it ends in.
15 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Milan Benes was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the FC Košice dressing room was either.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Shots: 5. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.” Milan Benes after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against MFK Ruzomberok? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Tatran Prešov next, and one man in the FC Košice dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leonardo Lukačević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
FC Košice close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 8 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
FC Košice asked and MFK Skalica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. FC Košice will try again when the window opens; MFK Skalica may not be selling by then.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Osman Kakay was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ján Krivák is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Milan Rehuš is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.