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Last summer, all the talk centred around Ďolíček and how the Jakubowicz family plans to take things in their own hands; two years on from what proved to be a frustratingly empty promise by Prague’s town hall, the owner of the iconic stadium. In winter, all that anyone was interested about was Ďolíček again, with a new 60-year-old lease announced in November. An hour-long press conference then laid down the concrete vision for a new arena in December, followed by some enticing visuals revealed in May. It’s all moving forth at a neck-breaking pace; in sharp contract to progress, or lack thereof, on the pitch.

Especially considering the natural limitations the architects had to work with, the renovated Ďolíček is one amazing piece of work. There was the Botič bio-corridor to preserve on the one side, there was the street to mind on the other, and so the eastern stand is ultimately supposed to take up just 450 centimeters, drawing comparisons to Boca Juniors’ legendary La Bombonera. The TV cameras will eventually be stationed right there to enjoy a lovely view of the main stand with an expanded press centre throughout the game.

Especially considering the 350-400 million budget and a tight timeline Bohemians are on (aiming to finish in 5 years), it makes sense the club isn’t making any particular strides in other areas. The marketing team has grown wider, which did show on a much nicer kit presentation this year, and the memorandum of understanding with Prague 10 that shall now provide greater support to community events around the stadium speaks to some mended fences, but other than that… quiet. Except for Jaroslav Veselý calling for reinforcements.

Especially considering the bold and commendable decision to mostly self-finance the renovation, Bohemians will likely have to stick it out on the pitch. Their roster is borderline middle group worthy, and definitely isn’t one of the thinnest. Leaning more towards its own breed, with the U-19 going 9-3-0 to start the top-tier promotion bid only to finish just below the line once again (7 points back at 3rd), might be a necessity as well as a good thing.

Between the Josef Jindřišek goodbye punctuated by re-claiming the title of the oldest Czech league goalscorer, the Matěj Hybš cancer comeback and the Ďolíček homerun, there was enough positive larger-than-life moments and emotions to power multiple campaigns.

Now it’s time to generate some purely football-fuelled excitement, too.

Looking back on 2024/25

What went (particularly) right

Together with Jablonec, Bohemians certainly cast the strongest spell on the area surrounding the opposing goal. These two teams barely hit the woodwork (twice; the second-lowest total is 4x) and hugely benefitted from costly mistakes of their adversaries. Jablonec and Ostrava may have been luckier in absolute terms — taking advantage of 17 and 18 errors respectively — but they also worked hard for a ton of other goals. In the case of Bohemians, more than every third goal was aided significantly by external factors. In other words, that’s close to a pair of such soft goals for every five goals ‘Klokani’ notched. It’s a lot.

As for aspects more under Bohemians’ control, their deep completed cross rate was once again Top 4 (even better last year), and their success rate in cracking the penalty area from open play was once again around an elite 48% (good for Top 3 this season when it was “only” enough for 5th-best last term). There was also a stretch in the middle of the season where Bohemians lost just three games in 14, flying deep under the radar. Ordinary but not bad.

What went (especially) wrong

Then again, it’s always about how you spin it. You could as well say that the stretch of 13 games to close out the season was more representative of their 24/25, with Bohemians only winning three times in that space for a (drastic) change. Overall, ‘Klokani’ only registered one back-to-back victory — courtesy of two consecutive 1:0, very much draw-like wins.

More alarmingly, for a second year in a row, Bohemians were the worst finishers in the league. Per xGSExpected Goals Scored (xGS) only takes shots on target into account, including their power and placement on top of xGF., they now lag behind their xGFExpected Goals For (xGF) estimates how many goals a team should have scored based on shot quality, location, and context. sum by nearly 15 goals over the last two seasons. That is brutal, and also the main reason why the team struggled so much against the likes of Pardubice (no triumph), Dukla (the early loss from 0.14 xGAExpected Goals Against (xGA) estimates how many goals a team should have conceded based on shot quality, location, and context. still seared into their memory) and České Budějovice (only one goal scored). In these six games alone, Bohemians racked up 9.57 xGF to go with a mere 5.01 xGS from shots on target, appearing far too kind.

Most valuable player (still on board)

Per my MVP model (traditional stats): Abdulla Yusuf Helal (ranked 19th league-wide)
Per my positional models (advanced stats): Abdulla Yusuf Helal (86th overall percentile at CF)
Per Statsbomb’s On-Ball Value (OBV) metric: Jan Kovařík

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to call Abdulla Yusuf Helal a total game-changer for Bohemians. He effectively brings David Puškáč-like qualities to the table, just with more aggregate… quality. In terms of tangible goal contribution output, the swap could’ve hardly gone any better: where Puškáč notched three points (one vital) last term, Yusuf now delivered 11 points and 2 more indirect contributions (led the team), with all but 3 of those tied to IGImportant Goal (IG) was either a go-ahead goal, or an equalizer. The rest is a standard goal.. As a result, only seven players in the league added more expected points to their teams’ respective totals, with Yusuf — a 10-time Team of the Week nominee — sharing the same space with Ewerton, Matěj Šín or Tomáš Chorý in terms of important pts (9-10 range).

Yusuf isn’t just flattered by goals and assists, mind, his underlying numbers were just as strong. For a big guy on the wrong side of 30, the Bahraini is actually quite active off the ball, even accelerating play at a fine rate on it. His greatest value, however, obviously comes in the form of aerial prowess and superior first touch. Yusuf wasn’t just a fantastic magnet for high balls in the final third (still winning over half of his 181 aerial duels in those areas; an insane amount), but he also won a vital 16 of 18 aerials inside his own box, helping out significantly on defensive set pieces. On top of this, as many as 22 goals or chances were facilitated by Yusuf’s lay-offs for teammates or delicate handling of the ball for himself. It is indeed no wonder that Bohemians scored 0.39 goals per game in over 900 minutes without him around (1.39 with him). He’s undefendable and selfless on his day; a frequent enough occurrence.

Chip on the shoulder

carried by the player who’s got something to prove — be it to himself, fans or the coach

Could Jan Kovařík be an effective top flight winger at 37 years old? He was, of course, precisely that earlier in his career, especially as he collected 195 appearances on the way to winning 4 titles with Plzeň. Between 2014-16, he quite possibly made for the most dangerous winger in the league, racking up 26 points. But that’s a whole decade ago. For the past few seasons at Bohemians, he was pretty consistently a decent weapon in the final third who needed to be shielded from shouldering too much defensive responsibility, but he still accumulated 1356 minutes as a traditional LB in a back four. Him getting paired with Vlasiy Sinyavskiy who provides more agility and defensive responsibility, then, is likely a wise response to Kovařík getting bypassed too easily (barely winning half of his duels for 3rd worst success rate) and breaking the rules too often (fouling in the defensive third 11x).

It’s not just about hiding the defensive deficiencies or limiting the amount of space his old legs need to cover, though; it should also be about maximizing the positive impact Kovařík can still have. For a 17-season veteran, landing in the top quarter for successful penalty area entries from open play is great; and so is topping all FBs in xA, regardless whether a ton of those stem from set pieces or not. Even if the dead ball situations are the only reason you want to keep Kovařík around, it’s a good enough reason when he contributes to 4 goals and 23 wasted scoring opportunities that way, as was the case in 24/25. But with Kovařík deep into the “steep decline” territory, you never know how he responds to nominally starting higher up. It is a different job, in a more crowded area. And registering Vladimír Zeman as the only Plan B — really nothing more than a solid, somewhat selfish shooter — isn’t ideal.

Inside the off-season

special thanks for guiding me through the motions of Bohemians Praha 1905’s off-season go out to @ogy_16

Squad turnover

My sole consultant put it well: Bohemians have basically spent the summer getting rid of old or out-of-depth (or, frequently, both at the same time) players, something they could’ve easily done a full year earlier. This goes especially for Josef Jindřišek (206 mins in 24/25), Ondřej Petrák (388 mins, and actually a negative MVP point total) or Lukáš Soukup (270) who was already put up for Christmas sale with no one biting. Both Martin Dostál and Jan Shejbal did play enough to qualify for pizza charts, but that was more an indictment than anything else. As a result, only Baník are arguably retaining more meaningful minutes on balance; despite cutting 8 outfield players who received some playing times in 24/25 (this includes also long-term suspended Vojtěch Smrž), Bohemians are keeping the authors of 89.7% of all important points, 91.5% of all chance-creating actions, and 89.5% of all goal contributions.

In other words, they are not hurting. Especially as they keep Dostál — by all means a great character you want around the team — in the capacity of A-team sporting manager where he may, with all due respect, fetch more net value. He slightly overstayed his welcome on the pitch, even though he remained to be one of the most expansive passers, cunning crossers.

Biggest upgrade

We can’t be sure at what level Matěj Hybš returns to the fold after overcoming cancer, but we can be certain he doesn’t drop to the level of Shejbal — 2nd-tier quality at the best of times. That’s one internal upgrade, as Shejbal received far too many calls during Hybš’s treatment.

As for an external fix, there could be one coming for the exact same role of a LCB where Ondřej Kukučka mostly featured for Slovácko. After more or less stagnating at Pardubice, the Sparta loanee finally took off in Uherské Hradiště, posting some sterling numbers across the board. Once you come to terms that he won’t ever move the needle for you on the ball (which you can live with next to Lukáš Hůlka), you can smile from ear to ear. Kukučka has come on leaps and bounds positionally, with much improved awareness, leading to him barely fouling (thrice in almost 23 starts), keeping possession with a healthy amount of his clearances (one third), and not getting caught out of position often. His rudimentary defending grades out 4th-best behind Lurvink, Dweh and Panák — solid company for a 21yo.

Biggest downgrade

Can one department (central defence) be a source of both the biggest upgrade and the biggest downgrade? I think it can, especially when you let go off a reliable if unspectacular right-footed centre back you could’ve feasibly paired up with Kukučka (with a history of filling both fullback roles, by the way, which might also come in handy), while keeping an unreliable and even more unspectacular left-footed centre back who instead presumably rivals Kukučka.

Antonín Křapka wasn’t necessarily a fan favourite but he was definitely closer to an unsung hero than a liability. The set piece threat he poses is understated (90th percentile for non-penalty xG) and his 11 positive net performances as opposed to 9 negative ones in terms of preventing and causing danger shouldn’t go unnoticed either. Jan Vondra, meanwhile, served up 17 negative ones to go with a trio of positive ones. A frequent aerial target (13 duels won out of 33 inside his own box) who doesn’t pay particular attention to what’s going on around him (31 cases of poor marking, positioning or miscommunication) shouldn’t rack up nearly 2500 minutes of playing time; something Vondra is now likely on track for again.

Need left to be addressed

There are a couple, naturally. Yusuf doesn’t really have a backup, there are basically no left-sided and left-footed options apart from the veteran we dealt with earlier, and I’d also look to replace Vojtěch Smrž properly — as a midfielder who contributes at both ends of the pitch. That could be Hůlka, but he’s needed elsewhere, so right now you are stuck with a duo of Benson Sakala and Aleš Čermák who somehow fit together but are both passengers in certain phases of the game. Besides, for an offensive specialist, Čermák provided too little:

What’s worse: the alternatives. There are many of them, don’t get me wrong, but I am not sure who they are actually supposed to be covering for. Nelson Okeke is probably the Plan B for Čermák, which doesn’t seem great as he looked off the pace most of the time, reaching for a foul far too often. Robert Hrubý and Milan Ristovski are, meanwhile, dudes with next to no points and few specialties. Hrubý can still muster a threat every now and then, possessing a fine cross and a pass, but they are both getting run over easily. In short, Bohemians’ C(A)M deck looks stacked, yet still feels misconstrued. No high-end quality, similar drawbacks.

New kid on the block

Bohemians have been the most reliable source of my frustration in this space, yet the situation is quite rapidly changing for the better. Where the team only took two U-23 players through the 2023 summer preparations (both of them, Denis Vala and Adam Kadlec, something of household names at that point already), later forcing me to highlight 24-year-old Vladimír Zeman a year ago, we are now… spoilt for choice? Well, I wouldn’t go overboard, but there are more choices. While he’s not a candidate anymore, it’s good to start by noting Šimon Černý is a fully fledged A-team member these days after getting promoted in winter, with Veselý actually sticking to his word and giving him 198 mins including two full starts — a fairly substantial portion for a summer 2006 birthday, not least in the Bohemians context.

He’s the club’s youngest debutant since Adam Kadlec in May 2021, and will remain so for a while, with U-17 Euro 2024 participant Matyáš Nechvátal (b. 2007) hitting a bit of a roadblock. Černý is not alone as a kid, though. Towards the end of the season, Tomáš Liška (b. 2004) also got some calls to the Chance Liga bench, having broken through for the third-tier reserves (provided they even exist, of course) with more than double the minutes, and triple the points (6+4) compared to the previous campaign, even pulling on the captain’s armband four months after turning 20. Half a year younger, Oliver Mikuda (b. 2005) is the third Musketeer hanging around the first-team and even getting some minutes in the dress rehearsal. He was as much a regular for the B-team as Liška, scoring 5x himself as a no. 8/10.

Bohemians’ B-team’s age average dropped by a whole year between 2023-25, and could go even lower this season per Transfermarkt (21.9), though there is no verifying since the “Youth” page on the club’s website isn’t active. Jan Podroužek was very critical of the club’s (lack of) focus on the academy in a recent KBZ podcast, even going as far as questioning qualities of some people running it, but there could be a light at the end of the tunnel; even in the form of a rare foreigner like the 9-goal Ukrainian striker Oleksandr Koval (b. 2005).

Looking ahead to 2025/26

Below is the team’s current(ish) depth chart with a maximum of 4 alternatives for one position. The colourful ratings are a static snapshot of the league-wide situation on 5 July, and they are just a playful bit to add flavour to it; the names featured should be relevant to this day. To learn more about my approach to constructing depth charts, with all its limitations, head here.

Primary formation

It might change when Kukučka gets healthy and provides Veselý with one more adequate CB alternative, but for now, Bohemians seem to be entering the season intending to utilize the back four. If there’s more certainty about the departure point in 25/26, it could only benefit ‘Bohemka’ who sorted through nine primary formation options, splitting the 34-game dataset roughly 60-40 in favour of the back 3/5 per Wyscout. This initial formation preference, btw, likely means more of Jan Matoušek centrally, an intriguing prospect after he served as the main driver of Bohemians’ numerous and deadly counter-attacks (10 goals per my notes).

Notes on the depth chart

If you had a feeling Matoušek and Václav Drchal, partnered with Yusuf up top, often do it all by themselves, that feeling wasn’t off. On a team that has no visible attacking structure and relies a lot on individualities, they are freaking essential for Bohemians to work. Matoušek and Drchal can take over entire matches (as many as five two-points efforts between the two of them) and thrive on meters of free space. Matoušek takes on defenders and generally looks to take the ball up the field; Drchal is the more complex player of the two, rounding his game to the point where he’s now equal parts a capable creator and a willing trigger man.

As for a bit quieter man who makes Bohemians tick to a similar degree, Lukáš Hůlka scores high on some of the most vital metrics to a team. He’s pretty much unbeatable in any kind of a duel, intercepts opponent’s actions frequently and generally pops up in the right spots at the right time. What’s particularly great is that Hůlka found himself in the same echelon for the same metrics last year, too. He took a step back or two in the ball progression category, but that was less of an issue now (next to Čermák) than it often was in years past…

… and besides, Hůlka will be too busy carrying this fella around in 25/26 anyway:

Roster battle to follow

Jaroslav Veselý may not see it as sufficient, but it’s undeniable Bohemians have recently flashed their financial muscle on the open market, as well. One such target who can’t have been too cheap was Peter Kareem — a fullback compared to Slavia’s Diouf by the coach, also featured on Ostrava’s shopping list at some point — while the other was the (openly admitted) most expensive Bohemians transfer ever, Tomáš Frühwald. Now they both need to fight.

With Vlašim doing alright in replacing him with Samuel Isife (now at Dukla) for the spring, Kareem was limited to just 155 minutes at Bohemians, stuck even behind the retiring Dostál. He may yet flourish and take the starter’s role away from Adam Kadlec, but assistant coach Stanislav Hejkal was pretty blunt in saying they expected “faster progress” in Kareem’s case.

That being said, Kadlec himself hasn’t taken enough steps forward. In what is probably his contract year, I’d particularly expect the 21-year-old to improve in ball progression via runs and ground duel success rate down his channel; two attributes he’s got the desired physical tools for but grades out decidedly below average in. He’s not an expansive passer, either.

As for Frühwald, the path to starting is all the more complicated by Michal Reichl running away with the no. 1 job in the second half of the past campaign. He ended up being the third-best regular goalkeeper in both prevented goals and high-danger saves; the second-best shot stopper all told, who has bounced back big time in terms of dependability after letting that Hašek hoofed ball fly past him early on. Only 2 of 23 conceded goals were his fault in the end.

Frühwald himself started off badly, allowing six goals in his first two starts, but hasn’t improved as opposed to Reichl — not in-season, and not throughout the summer where he didn’t look convinced even in the unexpected dress rehearsal shift with Reichl lightly injured. Frühwald is down there with the league’s worst shot stoppers, keeping out just 1 of 15 high-danger shots (carrying the value of at least 0.4 xCGExpected Conceded Goals (xCG) form the basis of the prevented goals metric and express how many goals the goalkeeper would have been expected to concede based on the quality of shots faced.), and posting one remarkably godawful save percentage of 47.4% (9 stops made while facing a total of 19 shots) in his last 5 starts.

The million-dollar question: was this the real Frühwald? He famously led all Niké Liga GKs in Wyscout’s total prevented goals (9.44) as well as prevented goals per 90 mins (0.55) in 23/24, and it wasn’t particularly close. Suddenly dropping to minus-3.20 (total) and minus-0.27 (average per game) can’t be who he is for real, even if his 23/24 did get overhyped. That said, his poor anticipation (showing on many mistimed rushes) looks flawed beyond repair.

Season forecast

Here’s a bit that’s always funny to return to: before the season marked by the famous 4th-place finish, Bohemians were pegged for 34.4 points after the regular season. Midway through that same campaign, still, they only enjoyed a 9% chance of rising up to the UEFA competitions. It was a miracle, especially whien compared to this year’s forecast after yet another season many had snoozed through, with Bohemians beating their Europe-bound selves by over three points, earning an 8% likelihood of repeating the UEFA joy. They’ve obviously regressed since summer 2023, but jumped up by 2.6 points after the most recent season. It’s been a whacky ride with ‘Klokani’ lately. What else could be in stock for them?

Bold prediction

The track record: 0/4. Reichl didn’t quite get to his longest clean sheet streak

The prediction: Veselý will receive a Brno-themed beating in the opener

The rationale: Jaroslav Veselý has recently made headlines, complaining about the wealthy Brno clubs stuck in the second-tier distorting the market for poor top flight clubs like ‘Bohemka’ by throwing banknotes at people. I mean, Veselý could swear he didn’t mention Brno clubs specifically when he actually most certainly did, so we’ll remind him of his Brno fascination by designing a Brno-themed bold prediction. It definitely won’t be laboured.

I swear.

There is a symbol of Brno greater than Vila Tugendhat or Zbrojovka itself. It is, inarguably, the Astronomical Clock mockingly as well as lovingly called “dildo”. It has been there for over a decade, reminding everyone of 12 million terribly spent Brno’s successful defence against the Swedish at the tail end of the Thirty Years’ War by spitting out a glass marble every day at exactly 11am, with the enthusiast locals taking their chances and trying to guess which of the four holes it’s going to fall through. This is, in fact, a perfect opportunity to earn up to 300 CZK at Aukro clever way to honour the legend of the 17th-century Brno citizens fooling the alien army (who swore to give up if they don’t capture the city by 12pm) by striking noon an hour earlier. And so we are going to honour the ‘Brno Time Machine’ in our own way, also poking four holes into Bohemians’ defence on their first matchday of the season.

Baník may have only put 4 goals past a Bohemians’ goalkeeper once (2002), but I say they do it again today — perhaps even by scoring in a minute that is a multiple of 11. Wanting a Scandinavian to deliver one of the blows would probably be a stretch already, but even that cannot be completely ruled out as long as Alexander Munksgaard is on board.

This can’t possibly go sideways.

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