How it took off: Having never faced them before, Necid peppered Karviná with 9 shots in 20/21, making them a club historically most threatened by him. Surely he couldn't sustain it.

How it landed: Not only did he fire multiple shots, Necid even scored against Karviná.

How it took off: In 2011, arrival of a new kit supplier signalled a disaster: a 24-point relegation. Now, Puma replacing Adidas was supposed to do the same, in line with Veselý's point pace thus far.

How it landed: In, erm, UEFA Conference League.

How it took off: David Puškáč had long been a solid but vastly injury-prone striker, setting a sad personal record of dropping out of the matchday squad 5 times; now he was due for some respect.

How it landed: Healthier and taking part in over 30 games for the first time, he didn't even hit 1500.

How it took off: Lined up to serve as a no. 1 again, Michal Reichl was supposed to not be dropped this time around, easily double his record clean sheet streak from 5 years ago at Olomouc (257 mins).

How it landed: Reichl lost the goal to not one, but two rivlas, and only barely topped his best (271).

How it took off: Having complained about Brno's spending power in the off-season, Veselý was supposed to oversee a 4-goal leakage vs Baník, paying an hommage to the iconic four-hole Dildo.

How it landed: Via Bohemians shutting out Baník, obviously.

How it took off: This effectively meant another slow start due to a high squad turnover...

How it landed: ... which wasn't completely off (MB averaged less than point per game after 9 rounds), but on Christmas Eve, they were sitting 6th and — crucially, damningly — a point ahead of Hradec.

How it took off: In may, FKMB took Martin Polaček — previously part of 17/18's Magnificent Six — back to rival Jan Šeda. I didn't go overboard and instead of predicting another sextet to take a spin, I was banking on a foursome; some combination of Šeda, Polaček, Mikulec, Šerák and Lichtenberg.

How it landed: The former 3 didn't let me down; Šerák had to wait till 25/26 to play for Pardubice.

How it took off: Jawo, Ladra, Kušej, Yusuf or Pulkrab. It was supposed to be a high-profile clash of egos, a high-octane failure after Boleslav actually ranked bottom-7 the season prior and bottom-5 not too long ago (17/18) with bombers Komlichenko and Chramosta already on board...

How it landed: ... and they scored more regular-season goals (50) than 4th-place Baník Ostrava.

How it took off: While I was counter-intuitively banking on FKMB's impotence the summer prior, here I went in the opposite direction, arguing that it's too hard to avoid going goalless in two consecutive games altogether. Indeed, even the 05/06 runners-up endured such a hiccup.

How it landed: They held on till Round 29, but that still wasn't long enough for me to celebrate.

How it took off: Exactly 30 years ago, "FK Bohemians Mladá Boleslav" finally ceased to exist. So to celebrate, FKMB were supposed to complete only their second top flight double over 'Klokani', and their first since 2011/12, after they failed to win earlier in 2025 while outshooting them 24:9.

How it landed: -

How it took off: Richard Dostálek may have only won five of 28 top flight games as a coach, and he might as well be signed under two more relegations from the first tier as a player (2010/11 with Brno, two years earlier with Zlín), but he had the owner’s eternal trust and recent history on his side. Only Opava (2018) had fired a second-tier champion of a manager mid-season in the past six years...

How it landed: ... and boy, did I look smart halfway through! Brno were still on course to finish in the middle group at Christmas, on pace for over 35 points and with a mere 5% chance of getting relegated. Then they won 1 of their first 10 games of 2023 and Dostálek was gone. Kinda jinxed him.

How it took off: At the time, this wasn't as bold as it may seem now, with the Croat's stock quite high. The blueprint was supposed to be provided by Pablo González who earned 3 votes on the back of his solid 20/21 campaign on a team that'd normally be, just like ČB, overlooked in this exercise.

How it landed: Mršić limped out of the gate and while still an above average contributor for ČB, barely Top 10 team results meant he was never a serious contender for a single vote, let alone 3.

How it took off: The idea here was that Dynamo had brought on board a few potential difference-makers upfront, headlined by Potočný and Zajíc, who'd take care of all the early scoring.

How it landed: Hellebrand, Králik, Čmelík. Nope, nope, and nope.

How it took off: Marek Nikl went straight to the senior national team in 1999, and Matouš Nikl was supposed to rectify this family's lack of youth NT pedigree by finally earning some U-21 love after all.

How it landed: He didn't. And to make matters worse, his dad didn't live to see the end of the season.

How it took off: The greatest moment of Zdeněk Ondrášek by far came vs England at Slavia's Eden. He had scored there much earlier in his career, too, and then surprised the juggernaut in 23/24, as well. Thus, it'd be only natural for him to bag his last top flight strike at Slavia, wouldn't it?

How it landed: He went silent for all 20 appearances he made in 24/25, just to be on the safe side.

How it took off: It started with a few of my consultants feeling like Dukla's issues with drawing big crowds are getting overblown by media and other fanbases alike, and continued with me looking at their promising 24/25 attendances for games vs Baník/Bohemians, with Plzeň potentially improving.

How it landed: -

How it took off: Through sheer cowardice. This was as close to a cop-out as a bold prediction gets, a rare one-flamer in the first 5 years of doing this fun exercise. At the start of 22/23, Hradec made for a rotating cast, with Miroslav Koubek fielding a changed starting XI thirty-two times in a row.

How it landed: Koubek needed to repeat the trick five times to open the season. He went 8 further.

How it took off: Hradec caused Slavia severe headaches between the last 3 encounters, effectively robbing them of one title (21/22) and 4 more points (22/23). Slavia also crushed HK in 21/22 regular season (9:2), though, and was about to face Jozef Weber (2 points from 14 Slavia clashes) at home.

How it landed: A fast start (goal in the 4th minute) gave me hope, but 2:0 wasn't enough.

How it took off: Petr before 24/25: 1 meaningless top flight goal. Lukáš in 23/24 only: 12 goals, 8 of them important. While Petr had scored every 290 mins in the 2nd tier, Lukáš has scored more often than Wágner, Chorý or Chramosta. The prediction was arguably bolder than you remember.

How it landed: Petr in 24/25: 0. Lukáš in 24/25: 0. I'd award myself half a point if Lukáš had at least stayed healthy, but Petr couldn't lap his older bro even with 1281 mins at his disposal, which was more than 14 times Lukáš's tally (89). Hitting the woodwork twice can only offer so much solace.

How it took off: The expectation was that by the end of September, the ownership takeover by Tomek, Ulich et co. happens, and the momentum will already have been generated by David Horejš running away with the Coach of the Month award. There were three suitable games on schedule: against Sparta (the upset), Zlín (the easy win) and Liberec (the rival killing). It was all lined up.

How it landed: The upset took place, Zlín also had to kneel, but Kozel made the 6 points look shabby.

How it took off: With Čelůstka and Jemelka injured to start the season and Stronati settling in Hungary, I saw a number of openings. And they were there for the taking... of two Filips, Kaša and Panák. Midway through, I placed this prediction in the "You can already forget about it" category...

How it landed: Yet 6 games into 2022, no loss among them, and Zelený was in for the Wales friendly.

How it took off: Drawing kings of 21/22 with a total of 14 ties appointing a coach who had managed the most draw-averse teams in both the first and second tier (a combined 7 ties with České Budějovice in 2018-20)? Surely, that could have only worked out one way, and one way only.

How it landed: Right in the middle of the pack, 4 draws off the top. Or bottom rather.

How it took off: Another counter-intuitive call: Jablonec were looking at 6 trips inside their first 10 rounds due to a Střelnice reconstruction, and yet I was guessing they could be off to a strong start.

How it landed: Látal's 20/21 Sigma lost only 1 of their first 13 games. His Jablonec won two.

How it took off: Luboš Kozel was unscathed in fierce rivalry matchups before 24/25. He beat Opava in his only derby in charge of Baník, and went lowkey unbeaten vs Jablonec in charge of Liberec (3-3-0). Now, guarding the trenches at the other side of the barricade, he was in for a change in tune.

How it landed: Jablonec failed to score a goal for exactly 16 minutes, before... stuff happened.

How it took off: The historic table of the Czechoslovak top flight is exclusively Czech after Liberec did their bit in 24/25 and took Slovan Bratislava over. Now it was supposed to be Jablonec's turn.

How it landed: The model gave it (56 pts) roughly a 17% chance. Might've been too pessimistic.

How it took off: Fresh off an impressive campaign where he was a legitimate league MVP candidate by February, I was banking on a massive age-related decline of Michal Papadopulos. To make things harder, he wasn't even a designated penalty taker in both 20/21 (when he missed one of the two).

How it landed: He would've needed to hit 7 penalties. He didn't even take one behind Qose, Čmelík.

How it took off: With some very strong newcomers welcomed to the league recently, only two of the last eight coaches of promoted teams didn't win a Coach of the Month accolade; one of them being Dostálek in 22/23, despite a fabulous August. That was the month I was hanging my hopes on with Tomáš Hejdušek, too, though it wasn't a condition like with other (mishit) predictions of this kind.

How it landed: With a sole point to show for his August exploits, Hejdušek was gone 2 games later.

How it took off: Once upon a time in the 1990s, four most attended Czech top flight stadiums were located in Brno, Opava, Karviná and Teplice. That was still the previous iteration of a Karviná, with the old bleak stadium Kovona then able to house 8 236 people a game. MFK was, meanwhile, first promoted in 2016 and immediately set their own club record at a much more modest 3 872.

How it landed: Their 24/25 average (2 353) was, in fact, their lowest apart from Covid years.

How it took off: Hyský was an unequivocal success in 24/25, you see, just about setting a new club best in goalscoring consistency. His Karviná went one game further on the longest stretch of 10 games from 17/18 with the super-start vs Sparta in February. Now they'll push even further.

How it landed: Sadly, the semantics trip me up. I was going for setting a new record, not matching it — which is what Karviná did in their famous Sparta win, before collapsing to a 0:6 loss to Liberec.

How it took off: Another slow start due to a high squad turnover was pretty much a given, but how slow exactly? At least 5 winless rounds, so that Slovan sets a new record split between seasons (10).

How it landed: The lovely Pavel Hoftych saw it through, getting fired right after the 10th game.

How it took off: Knobloch was my Liberec MVP halfway through 21/22, but got ousted by Vliegen eventually — who instantly looked much better. That's why predicting the Belgian to easily double his best unbeaten streak (118 mins) to beat Knobloch's (253) felt more fashionable than bold.

How it landed: Four shutouts over a stretch of 8 autumn games did no good; no back-to-backs.

How it took off: I was shocked to find out Kozel had only posted one season in his 16-year career where he banked over a half of all points (51.1% percentage in 12/13 with Dukla), predicting another such showing after a poor spring marked by a seven-game winless streak. Good luck to me.

How it landed: Good luck to me indeed: Kozel posted his worst Liberec rate, crashing down to 41.9%.

How it took off: Here we had some fun with the shiny new Slovan's aggressive off-season which saw them erect as many as 17 billboards between Jablonec and Prague. Against that backdrop, Kováč was supposed to become only the 4th Liberec coach in history to oversee a total of 17 victories.

How it landed: Trpišovský's 17-win debut unmatched. First Kováč version = best Kozel version (12).

How it took off: The big story of 24/25 was Jablonec hammering Liberec 5:0 in their own backyard, so here I'm calling for a sweet revenge for the maligned coach, who needs 13 wins to get to Big 50.

How it landed: The chances are slim. Kováč can only triumph 4 more times ahead of R27.

How it took off: The reasoning was sound — expecting a slow start without two key players and with a tough schedule, then a bounce back — but then Sigma won 3 of their first 5 to have me worried...

How it landed: ... and followed it up by a winless September (0-3-0).

How it took off: Vít Beneš was once a safe bet for 3(ish) goals a season, Ondřej Zmrzlý can hit it, Florent Poulolo was an aerial threat and now Lukáš Vraštil was replacing a goalless Hubník...

How it landed: Beneš was back at his best (4) and 7 defenders combined for league-leading 14 goals.

How it took off: I wondered how it happened that Jílek only managed to reach 4 games without dropping points. His 17/18 Sigma couldn't even do better than a back-to-back victory. That was bound to change, and it was supposed to change in an historic manner. Six games was the goal.

How it landed: Two sets of three victories were the best Jílek mustered before getting the hook.

How it took off: Jan Navrátil overstayed his welcome as a nailed-on regular under Jílek, something I was expecting to change now. In a full turnaround, he was to stop starting, and start scoring.

How it landed: Navrátil didn't start scoring: not reached a total of 3, bagging zero off the bench.

How it took off: The last time Sigma were following up on an unlikely cup victory, they proceeded to rattle off a 12-game unbeaten streak. Curiously, of the 4 instances Sigma reached 12 straight games without a loss and failed to extend the streak, two dragon-slaying jobs were carried out by Teplice. Now they were supposed to deliver a similar blow, though not necessarily to such a long run.

How it landed: Teplice couldn't have possibly dealt the blow in R9, following up on a loss. And since they face Sigma again quite early doors, they won't get another chance. Olomouc are starting over with the first spring round after a trio of losses, and their current longest streak is 8 games long.

How it took off: This one was so much on the nose I didn't actually provide reasoning for it.

How it landed: Halfway through, I wasn't optimistic with Galásek — Smetana's presumed right-hand — barely noticeable in press or otherwise. But then on 12 April, Galásek got the call to finish the job.

How it took off: Here, I for once bought into the league's narrative that the competition is less than 20 years old and pretended like Ostrava didn't actually win 856 top flight games. For them to celebrate on the road, they would have to either open a season with a back-to-back victory for the first time since 2007 (good scenario), or only register their second win of 22/23 in Round 5 (bad).

How it landed: It was actually an even worse scenario for both me and Baník: R8 at home. Yikes.

How it took off: Only during Filip Kubala's unveiling did many of us learn he's actually a Baník boy, despite spending a mere one year at the club as a 12-year-old. That set up a particularly bold prediction of Kubala producing his one multi-point performance per season (the usual standard of the previous two years) right out of the gate, against his "actual" football home of Slovácko.

How it landed: Kubala did score twice vs Slovácko, but that was later; R2 brought a goalless dud.

How it took off: Every second expert predicted Hapal to get fired in 24/25, so I had to go uber-specific on this one, predicting him to fail in exactly the same way Baník's last Europe-bound coach did. Koubek limped out of the gate after securing Ostrava some UEFA football and got fired after R13.

How it landed: In one of the more dramatic twists of fate in recent memory (and embarrassing bold prediction outcomes for yours truly), Hapal not only survived, but delivered a season for the ages.

How it took off: In 24/25, Baník peaked as this resilient side not minding any deep hole, taking 22 points from 16 games they found themselves trailing in. This wasn't normal; bound for correction.

How it landed: In the aftermath of the preview publishing, I received one surprisingly strong pushback, claiming the prediction wasn't so much bold as it was a pure nonsense. I am not celebrating yet, but so far so good — with all autumn wins nearly backed up by a clean sheet.

How it took off: Going against the common "sophomore curse", I predicted Pardubice wouldn't actually regress too much, still finishing at least 15 points above the first relegated side. With many people putting 7th Pardubice down as a relegation candidate, I was livid yet not going overboard — the 5-win margin would have walked them to 10th in 20/21, so nothing overly dramatic either.

How it landed: While I wasn't quite clear about what the "drop" means, this was once again a year where the only side to go down was the last-place one, and Pardubice did build up an 18-point lead on Karviná, so I count this as a hit despite Pardubice not living up to the spirit of the prediction.

How it took off: I was being cheeky, but not completely mad, since Vysočina Jihlava opened their top flight account at their own stadium with a game-winning own goal. Now, with Pardubice expecting to debut at their own new arena sometime during the 22/23 season, I was fishing for a re-run.

How it landed: Slavia won 2:0 at CFIG Arena in the first truly home game of 22/23, but no own goal.

How it took off: About half a year after Pardubice opened their own arena, arch rivals Hradec Králové followed suit. That was an inevitable set up: Pavel Černý jr., his dad and his grandad all enjoyed strong ties to Hradec, so surely there was a goal waiting for the former in his farewell run.

How it landed: In an agonizing miss, Pavel Černý did score vs 'Votroci', but it was in Pardubice.

How it took off: At the start of 24/25, Ladislav Krobot — 3rd highest scorer in Pardubice's top flight history (11) — was lowkey battling it out with Huf for the best super-sub in the club's history, sitting on 10 goals bagged off the bench himself. Here I was banking on Krobot being more of a starter.

How it landed: Two of three as a starter, but all three in the second half still.

How it took off: In 24/25, it took the infamously inept Dynamo ČB side exactly 7 rounds to register a first point. Now, with Pardubice facing four Top 6 candidates early on, the scene was set for a re-run.

How it landed: The 41-minute man advantage vs arch rivals Hradec made sure I failed as soon as R4.

How it took off: The up-and-comer had a weird 20/21, providing more helpers (4) than goals (2) despite mostly looking to attack the box and not looking to pass much. Now the script was to flip.

How it landed: This was the season where Šulc got scapegoated, unable to finish. One apiece.

How it took off: Losing their top point producer in Beauguel over the summer, Plzeň were actually left with players who already landed outside of last season's Top 10 in Mosquera (11th), Sýkora (24th).

How it landed: The Top 10 wasn't exactly owned by Viktoria, but Chorý's 17 pts were enough for 7th.

How it took off: Here I had fun with how many current Viktoria players Koubek previously led on his many career stops. There were a few options, including some throwback ones (like Havel from Bohemka, or Řezník from Baník), but Adam Vlkanova was by far the most obvious as well as likeliest.

How it landed: And he bombed with 0 points, lagging behind embarrassing leader Lukáš Hejda (5).

How it took off: It was becoming clear at this point Lukáš Červ tended to foul a bit more in high-stakes games, already booked in four different Sparta/Slavia games, and one of his cousin (David Douděra) plays for an 'S'. The other, Martin, was with Dukla then. A second red card was coming.

How it landed: He was sent off, but vs Boleslav. Not even a yellow against the right opponents.

How it took off: Plzeň were the great set-piece underachievers over the Kalvach years, ranking 2nd in expected goals and 9th in actual goals last time. They never led the pack with him on duty, but with Ladra taking over as another noted specialist, there was no good reason to not be optimistic.

How it landed: They are not leading, but it's not lost. 8 to Plzeň, 10 to both Prague 'S' clubs.

How it took off: A postponed Euro, shortened summer and the desire to get back into the UCL completely clouded my judgment led me to believe Slavia could start slowly, having to play catch up.

How it landed: By Christmas, Slavia dropped 9 points; Sparta didn't leave 3rd for the rest of 21/22.

How it took off: After Slavia snapped up a red hot David Douděra who outscored his xG with easy at Boleslav, I was banking on him replicating Masopust's goalless 21/22 at least until Jan Bořil — probably still a couple of months away at that point — makes the long-awaited comeback.

How it landed: By the time Bořil finally returned in late April, Douděra already bagged four.

How it took off: It obviously wasn’t the case last term, with Slavia incredibly tagging their opponents twenty-four times in only eight 90-minute Jurečka shifts. All appearances considered, though, Slavia were actually doing better without their top 22/23 scorer who was only really great in the spring.

How it landed: With Jurečka not slowing down, it was an uphill battle: 2.25 goals with, 2.00 without.

How it took off: With me wondering whether it could be Zafeiris or Oscar, even mentioning a departing Wallem or an never-to-be-signed-again Olayinka Slavia were reportedly flirting with.

How it landed: In the most inadvertent hit of all-time, it was El Hadji Malick Diouf after all.

How it took off: Jindřich Staněk lowkey registered the second highest share of clean sheets (69.2%) ever produced by a Slavia goalkeeper in his ordinary 24/25, yet he had never so much as put together a clean sheet streak of 5 games in his entire career, topping out at 4 just this past spring.

How it landed: Shipped 3 goals on the first count. Slavia need to finish regular season strong.

How it took off: In 20/21, Slovácko sourced a ridiculous amount of danger from set pieces, including 14 penalties. That was to change, specifically to the old standard of 2-3 penalties from 2016-20.

How it landed: After a slow start and 2021 promise of 1 (missed) penalty, Slovácko ended up with 7.

How it took off: This hadn’t happened since May 2019; Svědík’s first season. Soon after, Milan Petržela arrived and that was basically it. Now he was still around as a starter with Michal Kadlec, both combining for 76 years alone. Their 21/22 season average was 29.6, but I just needed an outlier.

How it landed: Their lowest average did have 27 in it, but it was very close to 28.

How it took off: Despite a rich history of luring fine foreign talent in, Slovácko were last led in points by a foreigner in 2006/07 — and that was Milan Ivana (10 points) who barely counts as a Slovak. With Doski, Sinyavskiy, Kim Seung-bin or Cicilia around, why not to bank on a dramatic change of tune?

How it landed: Cicilia was at least the runner-up, but his 8 points were no match to Havlík's 13.

How it took off: The prediction was even bolder in detail: Slovácko were to bank their 900th top flight point, equalling Zlín, on the exact same day Milan Petržela opens his 2023/24 scoring account. He just celebrated 20 years since concluding his first season as a Synot man, so who else?

How it landed: Petržela didn’t score as Slovácko earned 900th point. No Slovácko player did.

How it took off: Freshly minted Slovácko coach Jan Kameník is a man with strong regional ties, hailing from Otrokovice and getting a first top flight taste as a caretaker at Zlín, so he was going to appreciate me predicting him leaving a big mark on the Zlínský kraj derby that was just returning.

How it landed: It was a draw (1:1) in Round 2, and Kameník didn't live to see the return match. Yikes.

How it took off: The Romanian goalkeeper spent much of December and January standing on his head. Then he signed a two-year extension at the start of April, and his campaign swiftly derailed. Even as a folk hero, Florin Niță felt quite vulnerable to the incoming challenge from Dominik Holec.

How it landed: On October 26, Sparta’s Deník Sport beat writer Jan Vacek called Niță “the best goalkeeper in the league”. A month later, on November 25, Niță was dropped and never returned.

How it took off: Drunk by the early success, I went far overboard, seeing many former employers of Jan Kuchta and guessing he could indeed score exclusively against them for the entire campaign.

How it landed: Of his 14 goals, merely 5 came against Teplice, Liberec, Slovácko, Bohemians or Slavia.

How it took off: While surely not many of you noticed, Asger Sørensen bagged possibly the most important goal of his career (the 2:1 go-ahead goal in the last Prague 'S' derby of the season) on the eve of his favourite compatriot’s birthday. Next May, he was going to be there for Priske again.

How it landed: He wasn't though: Sørensen didn't even register a shot on the coach's birthday.

How it took off: Sparta faced a broken up Pardubice side in the opener, so destroying them would be no surprise, and no bold prediction whatsoever. But the fact they would never go over 3 goals again, when they put the same load past 8 different goalkeepers in 23/24? That took it to another level.

How it landed: Scored twice first, then immediately tagged Teplice 4x. The other way round, guys!

How it took off: Just before leaving to become a Hoffenheim icon, Pavel Kadeřábek bagged a remarkable trio of goals in his last five starts for Sparta in May 2015. This time I reckoned he would wait till May to re-open his scoring account at Letná, for a change, only notching assists till then.

How it landed: The summer didn't even end before he shot down Liberec on 17 August.

How it took off: Slavia, Jablonec, Ostrava, Olomouc, Plzeň, Liberec, Pardubice, Zlín, Boleslav. Apart from the tail end — when you’re potentially knackered both physically and especially mentally — this was a brutal home autumn stretch; 7 of the previous season’s Top 9 sides. It wasn't all that bold...

How it landed: ... until Jablonec decided on being rubbish from the get go, losing in Teplice in R2.

How it took off: This was the summer Teplice went a bit overboard with auctioning stuff, including the captain's armband. As for kits, they threw exactly 36 of them (including one of a masseur!), meaning they needed to score 37 times which they actually did not in two previous seasons.

How it landed: I aimed for 37 at the campaign's end; Teplice just managed inside the regular season.

How it took off: The most recent Teplice sell-out was an all-time classic, a suitable throwback to a completely different era when 18 500 fans came out on a warm August 1999 afternoon to see as many as 5 Czech internationals don the yellow jersey and witness Michal Bílek score his only career hat trick. Since the turn of the millenium, the 16 180 people who showed up to watch the fabulously named Eugene Salami participate on a 1:0 win against Plzeň, the reigning champions, was the bar.

How it landed: The fresh identity wasn't as big a pull as I thought, with Sparta drawing 15 840.

How it took off: As we approached the 20th anniversary of Edin Džeko, easily the most internationally recognized foreigner to ever grace our fields, debuting in the Czech top flight, I stumbled across a frustrating fact: not many recognizable foreign faces of Teplice were internationals while calling Stínadla their home. Džeko first had to move, and so did Šušnjar before debuting for Australia; Ljevaković or Vukadinović never made it. And Mićević actually had some pedigree; he was Serbia’s U-21 international and debuted in the A-team not too long ago (01/2021).

How it landed: Mićević was important for Teplice, don't get me wrong, but he was likely never close.

How it took off: As of summer 2025, Matouš Trmal had kept out all shots in a majority of his starts for FK Teplice (6/11), merely conceding five times. That was a ratio impossible to sustain with a further full season under his belt, but something like 13 clean sheets could keep him afloat.

How it landed: After a shocking start, Trmal is on course: 7 clean sheets in the bag, just 2% back off.

How it took off: Zlín had yet to have a Top 10 scorer on their books for the entire season, with the half-a-season exceptions being Jean-David Beauguel (18/19) and Tomáš Klinka (04/05). Meanwhile, there were always a few underachievers at Zlín, chief of whom was good ol' Tomáš Poznar.

How it landed: Poznar almost didn't fit on the first page here with his measly 8 points.

How it took off: This wouldn’t have been too shocking since it was actually true for 21/22. Only two stadiums were more scoring-friendly the year prior, while Zlín’s Letná averaged 3.22 goals per match — narrowly beating the more famous Letná’s average of 3.17 goals. Can it keep going, though?

How it landed: After 30 rounds, it was exactly fifty:fifty. In the end, Sparta's Letná won 59:56.

How it took off: Here I was inviting the Lady Irony, betting on Pavel Vrba — infamous for not furthering the development of Adam Karabec et co. — to have the guts to start as many as 5 youngsters at a club where anyone before him has only ever gone for a quartet of U-21s (in 1995).

How it landed: Cedidla, Tkáč, Slončík played the part, Bužek cropped up, but that was literally it.

How it took off: This summer marked a lowkey return of Pavel Hoftych to the top flight in the role of a sporting manager, while he was actually a bit of a mentor for the current coach. In fact, there has been no manager who'd trust Bronislav Červenka more, with Hoftych giving him an average of 89.7 minutes per game, only subbing him off once. Ultimately, Červenka started 15 games for him.

How it landed: We were going for 3-7-5 and 16 points in the first 15. Zlín went 6-5-4 for 23 points.