From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Slovan Bratislava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Slovan Bratislava did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market31 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Slovan Bratislava have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Adam Griger gets it from the manager
“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.
Match29 Aug 2026
It needed Andraž Šporar to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against MFK Michalovce, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Juraj Kucka chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Slovan Bratislava have let the market know Nino Marcelli can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Aug 2026
KFC Komárno will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Slovan Bratislava were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Slovan Bratislava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Rahim Ibrahim goes up and wins it — 6.39
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 6.39 for the rest of it.
Market24 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Slovan Bratislava asked and MSK Zilina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rahim Ibrahim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Niko Janković was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.09. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Slovan Bratislava.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Miroslav Tomek, and the manager let it.
In brief
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The dugout
Rahim Ibrahim is still being punished for one mistake
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Player ratings
The pass was always on for Suleiman Camara
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Aug 2026
MSK Zilina will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Slovan Bratislava were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.97 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lecce have kept their man, and Slovan Bratislava go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$4.3M was the most the club would pay and Dinamo Moscow 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.
Market17 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rahim Ibrahim 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Kevin Wimmer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Danylo Ignatenko, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Juraj Kucka could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Slovan Bratislava did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs have shaken hands with AS Trencin; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Daiki Matsuoka delivers — 7.94
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Daiki Matsuoka scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: DAC Dunajska Streda keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rahim Ibrahim and Slovan Bratislava agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Daiki Matsuoka and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Slovan Bratislava have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Andrej Suslov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against AS Trencin, and it could have been more.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Mykola Kukharevych takes the afternoon — 8.80
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mykola Kukharevych provided it, and the 8.80 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Kryvbas for Mykola Kukharevych 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Alasana Yirajang, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.27
A mark of 8.27 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Slovan Bratislava have gone to Dinamo Moscow with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Slovan Bratislava asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Daiki Matsuoka 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.