24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Defensive actions: 22. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Dmitriev 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Igor Dmitriev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.08. 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.
Cristian Peláez 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Igor Dmitriev 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.72, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Mikula 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Šimon Gabriel. 1‑0 against Jihlava, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.41 — 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. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Oct 2026
9 new faces, and Slovan Liberec are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Šimon Gabriel
Tomáš Koubek 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Jan Mikula 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.
At 23 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.
The goal that put Banik Ostrava ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Slovan Liberec equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Lukáš Letenay 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Igor Dmitriev 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Slovan Liberec are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Dmitriev 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.
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.
“I watch every Slovan Liberec game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Vasas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Igor Dmitriev 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Mikula 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.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Dmitriev 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.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Mikula 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.
8.66. 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Tomáš Koubek's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.88 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Igor Dmitriev 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Šimon Gabriel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.20. 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.
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.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Lukáš Mašek’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Slovan Liberec.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marek Icha 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 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.
Marked 8.41 — 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.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Vojtěch Sychra has his answer from Slovan Liberec; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Slovacko go through and Slovan Liberec go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The phone has started ringing about Qëndrim Zyba again, and this time the name on the line is Sparta Prague. Slovan Liberec are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jan Mikula 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Slovan Liberec will not try tonight.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The offer from Zbrojovka Brno for Lukáš Letenay 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. José Rivas Gamboa is living that version at Slovan Liberec, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: José Rivas Gamboa from Trujillanos for $680.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Mikula 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Lukáš Mašek 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Lukáš Letenay at his very best
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lukáš Masopust and Slovan Liberec agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slovan Liberec this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Lukáš Pešl has his answer from Slovan Liberec; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
241 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tomáš Koubek and Slovan Liberec agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Slovan Liberec has been clear about where Martin Rýzek stands, which is more than many ever get.