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Here we go again. Last winter, the model had to correct itself by a whopping 11.6 points with Jablonec. Then, after the overperforming team actually improved its underlying numbers and point pace in the spring, Jablonec received a 48-point projection worthy of another Top 5 spot. So of course they proceeded to up the ante further, warranting yet another winter forecast glow-up — and hardly insignificant at that — while jumping ahead of Plzeň both in the real and model’s standings. Is it time to start ignoring the xG Gods?

The Outlook

At some point, it’s plain stubborn to keep refusing to believe the hype while pointing at some magic numbers beneath the surface, and we are at least slowly getting there with Jablonec. A year ago, there was more than one good reason to be cautious; this was, after all, still a team that only won 6 regular season games in the preceding season. Nowadays, it’s increasingly difficult to look at Jablonec’s stellar point pace and shrug it off. After all, great forwards routinely outpace their xG, and great teams routinely outperform their xPExpected Points (xP) measure a team's likely point gain from a particular game; not only based on sum xGF and xGA, but also based on distribution of shots (ie. five 0.01 xG shots won't give you the same chance for a win as one 0.05 xG shot).. Slavia earned 9.5 extra points last term, theoretically making for the 4th greatest overperformers, and nobody batted an eyelid. They are the 2nd biggest overperformers now, and hardly anyone would take offence at that. Sparta of 23/24 were deserving of 72.6 points per Wyscout, and no one was seen complaining about their actual gain of 87 points. Maybe Jablonec are just… great.

An essential part of the rosy forecast above is Jablonec’s softest schedule of all: they are sitting pretty at 3rd despite, incredibly, taking care of both their matchups with Slavia, Plzeň and Hradec, welcoming the rest of the current Top 8 at home (Olomouc, Liberec, Karviná) until they head to Sparta’s Letná to close out the regular season — when a top campaign of theirs could/should be all but sealed. Much like we predicted a smooth sailing for an overperforming Jablonec to restart the season this time last year (and FKJ did end up winning three of the first four spring rounds), it’s easy to expect it again… and lasting longer.

Ultimately, Jablonec are clearing the 55-point bar inside the regular season in over half of all simulations, even though they’ve actually done it just once since 2017/18 (deep in the covid years), sitting a daunting 20 points away from the threshold as recently as three years ago.

Luboš Kozel can’t ever get enough credit for this amazing turnaround.

Peak Gain: Liberec 2:0 (away)
Peak Loss: Zlín 1:3 (home)

Toughest Assignments Left: Sparta (A), Liberec (H)
Softest Assignments Left: Dukla (A), Slovácko (H)

The Big Question
Do Jablonec have something of a fitness issue?

We don’t need to bang the drum about how Jablonec own 10.4 extra points compared to what xP dictates, or that they were (on average) 37% likely to win in their 10 victorious games. But what’s interesting to dissect is specifically the club’s 10-game unbeaten start to the season where they accumulated an 11-point cushion over their xP, taking 24 points from performances worthy of 13. Over that span, FKJ incredibly were up at half-time in 9 cases, scoring 10 more goals than the opposition despite not even holding a two-xG lead at the same time. They ended up not winning just a pair of those games and have generally done very well in advantageous situations, turning a total of 13 leads into a 10-3-0 season record.

Now, if you’re asked to chase the game from the start of the second half so rarely (exactly three times this season), it makes sense you sometimes take the foot off the pedal after the break. It makes less sense, though, to take both of them off — like FKJ have so often done.

It’s one thing to be a Dukla or a Zlín and routinely get hemmed in after coming out of the dressing room to restart the game; it’s another thing altogether to have the worst chance differential between the 46th and 60th minute (minus-38) as a legitimate Top 3 candidate. We talked about how Baník’s awful first halves are very much what led them to the dark pit they currently find themselves in; so it’s pretty astonishing to note Jablonec are pacing for 16 regular-season wins while putting out even worse 2nd-half efforts (minus-90 vs minus-82). From a team that has yet to have a player sent off, the finding somehow hits you even harder.

Is our league genuinely becoming so conditioned that Kozel’s teams’ famous and persistent lack of intensity and kilometres clocked is slowly starting to catch up with them — even if not yet on the scoresheet? Or is it just good ol’ complacency in the light of all those HT leads?

The X-Factor
Riding the favourable shooting percentages hard

Excellent teams normally succeed on the back of a high PDO — the sum of a team’s shooting and save percentages — and not in spite of it. At least that was true of the great Slavia teams of years past. Jablonec of 25/26 is somewhere in the middle, converting on the third highest percentage of shots (13.9%) but getting set back by sub-par goalkeeping (11th in terms of prevented goals, slightly worse — 13th — in terms of the more traditional save percentage). It is, however, a different combination of two metrics that doesn’t yet have an acronym, which helps explain Jablonec’s peculiar success. It’s the combination of both shooting percentages.

While Jablonec’s own (post-shot) xGSExpected Goals Scored (xGS) only takes shots on target into account, including their power and placement on top of xGF. beats its (pre-shot) xGFExpected Goals For (xGF) estimates how many goals a team should have scored based on shot quality, location, and context. by 2.5 goals, making for the fourth deadliest trigger in the league, their opponents are underhitting their collective xGF by 3.8 goals, sitting dead last in effectiveness. Now, since it’s pretty rare for a shot on goal to carry a smaller xGS value compared to its xGF value, this basically means Jablonec’s adversaries are too often found missing the target altogether. That is indeed the case, since Hanuš only had to deal with 24.8% of all projectiles; the second lowest share stands at 32%.

This is, crucially, something Jablonec don’t have under their control — so it can change in an instant. They have done well forcing shots from afar or the perimeter, but not better than 5 other teams in the league. As of now, they’ve mostly just been lucky, with only three more sets of opponents (of Liberec, Slovácko, Zlín) even underhitting their xGF in the first place.

Jablonec have posted a truckload of clean sheets and they are also very well set in their defensive ways, so that explains most of the Top 5. Nemanja Tekijaški oversaw 9, Filip Novák 8 and Martin Cedidla 7. They are also usually scored high by Deník Sport markers, earning something between 5.8 and 6.0 on average, which signals some insane consistency with the amount of playing time they’ve all received. The seven points between them also don’t hurt.

Still, as long as Ebrima Singhateh dwells in Karviná, it’s enticing to favour either Jan Chramosta or Alexis Alégué who have caused some tremendous damage from both wings, with a bit of a caveat. The veteran, (in)famously carried by his 3 Deník Sport MotM titles and 7 goals all the way to the national team, only notched two of his 12 goal contributions following his 6 October call-up. The mercurial Togolese, meanwhile, started strong and finished strong — with a literal black hole in between. He’s still signed under 8 vital goals in a mere 12 starts as the team’s foremost primary chance creator (9), so I’d personally fancy him.

The Wild Card

No need to overthink it: ranked 49th league-wide, Lamin Jawo would walk right into twelve other Top 5s (only Slavia, Karviná and Plzeň couldn’t fit him in) and would straight up lead two boards (Baník and Slovácko). With Jan Hanuš not far behind, Jablonec possess the most top-heavy leaderboard out there, with little depth beyond their Top 8 or so. Jawo himself has chipped in to second-most goals on the team (11), delivering 6.3 EPAExpected Points Added (EPA) estimate the value of one's goals and assists based on game state (late game winners = top). in the process. With an average Deník Sport mark of 6.2, he’s the most consistent Jablonec player still on their books.

The Shake-Up

Kozel is on record saying he didn’t want to mess with what’s worked so far, and so the club is most likely smart in bringing back its former left back Eduard Sobol. The Ukrainian is soon turning 31 and his previous address probably flatters him a bit too much (he didn’t actually play in Ligue 1 since March), but it’s still wiser to bank on him turning the 14th-ranked left channel into something more than handing the keys to unproven Lukáš Penxa. At his peak, Sobol was able to contribute both ways, while Jablonec’s left-hand side is actually bottom 5 per both positional xGF and xGAExpected Goals Against (xGA) estimates how many goals a team should have conceded based on shot quality, location, and context., with Matěj Polidar injured at two points of the season.

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