54 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A brace, and Vasil Kušej takes the afternoon — 8.76
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vasil Kušej provided it, and the 8.76 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer from Spartaks for Jinřich Musil 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.
Tomáš Vaclík 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.
In brief
SquadJan Bořil falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Bořil was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
A performance of 8.32 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Qëndrim Zyba was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Slovan Liberec have had the benefit of it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Slovan Liberec, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Petr Juliš 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 point taken on 86 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Tomáš Koubek and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Vasil Kušej 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.
He is 22 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vasil Kušej. 2‑0 against Viktoria Plzen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Viktoria Plzen tried to reorganise, Slovan Liberec did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Matěj Mikulenka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Position 3, 44 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
Sigma Olomouc will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Anthony Pavlešić has pre-agreed a move to Slovan Liberec, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad21 Dec 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Petr Ševčík and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Vasil Kušej 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Matěj Mikulenka 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.
A 2‑0 win over Mlada Boleslav, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.44. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Slovan Liberec.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Matěj Mikulenka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Raimonds Krollis provided it, and the 8.85 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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. 8.41, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad7 Dec 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.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Vasil Kušej is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Lukáš Letenay’s exile
18Edition
The Slovan Liberec Post
30 Nov 2026
From our football correspondentSteady
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A brace, and Vasil Kušej takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vasil Kušej provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
Squad30 Nov 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Tomáš Vaclík
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Tomáš Vaclík: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
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 first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Slavia Prague; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Vasil Kušej 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.
“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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Vladimir Masopust to a room that had heard them before.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Slovan Liberec can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasil Kušej 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tomas Sykora is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ondrej Brabec has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
A 1‑0 win over Sparta Prague, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Pribram will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Slovan Liberec were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
He is 22 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.
Sparta Prague next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Slovan Liberec training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anthony Uzodimma 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad26 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.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Efa Enabulele has, at Slovan Liberec, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
15 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.
The dugout19 Oct 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.” Vladimir Masopust chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
In brief
The dugoutLukáš Hůlka asks for a word with the manager
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dominik Kúdelčík is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vaclav Sima has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Martin Holes is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matěj Mikulenka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Qëndrim Zyba and Slovan Liberec agree another 3 years.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Mikula was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8.26. 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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Tomáš Vaclík
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Slovan Liberec will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match26 Sep 2026
Petr Ševčík wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Petr Ševčík found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Sigma Olomouc went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
A 2‑1 win over Sigma Olomouc, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Mikula was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Marek Icha
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Slovan Liberec will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vasil Kušej. 1‑0 against Bohemians 1905, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.40 — 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.
14 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Vladimir Masopust could afford to be generous.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Slovan Liberec will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abdulrafiu Taiwo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bohemians 1905 have kept their man, and Slovan Liberec go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jiri Darida has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ondrej Brabec has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
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.
$9.1M was the most the club would pay and Norwich City 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.
The offer from Rukh for Matěj Mikulenka 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.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Slovan Liberec have 4 straight wins of it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Slovan Liberec until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bohemians 1905 have kept their man, and Slovan Liberec go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Petr Ševčík 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Vojtěch Stránský 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vojtěch Stránský. 1‑0 against Slovacko, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Mikula was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Player ratingsVojtěch Stránský was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Mlada Boleslav will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Slovan Liberec were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
$9.1M on the table at Norwich City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Add another name to the list: Rukh have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matěj Mikulenka. The answer from Slovan Liberec has not changed — yet.
The shirt still fits. Petr Ševčík is back at Slovan Liberec, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Rodina keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
He is 23 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Tomáš Vaclík
Slovacko are out and Slovan Liberec go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Vasil Kušej takes the afternoon — 8.51
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vasil Kušej provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Slovan Liberec have done the hard part with Zbrojovka Brno, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jan Knapík scored, was marked 7.85, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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 Liberec, and it is not being withdrawn.
Marked 6.96 on 17 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Tomáš Vaclík 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. OFI have kept their man, and Slovan Liberec go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
“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.
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.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Slovan Liberec have made the call to Rodina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Slovan Liberec have made the call to HNK Rijeka. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Jablonec, and it could have been more.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Vasil Kušej takes the afternoon — 8.40
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vasil Kušej provided it, and the 8.40 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
Tomáš Koubek 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.92, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vasil Kušej was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Mlada Boleslav will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Stefan Jovanoski has pre-agreed a move to Slovan Liberec, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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.
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.