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Priske is no Messiah. The boring reality of his return to the club he’d led to two titles — one shocking, one dominant — is that this campaign could’ve gone a lot better, but also much worse. With the model shaving just one victory off Sparta’s summer forecast, there’s even an argument to be made that the season has, in fact, gone according to expectations and perhaps even the plan. After all, standing 7 points behind the leaders after 19 rounds has already served Sparta well once, and Slavia do seem more fragile than in 2025…

The Outlook

As with every parallel, this one too has its cracks. While it’s certainly tempting to see Sparta’s projected total now and then — a difference of 0.4 points — and exclaim “the repeat is coming!”, it’s really not that straightforward. For one, the 22/23 frontrunners (Plzeň) were fancied for two fewer regular-season points than 25/26 Slavia, scoring a mere 52% chance of becoming the back-to-back champions where Slavia’s title defence is effectively a done deal. For two, at the 19-game mark in early 2023, Sparta were in the middle of a tear, winning 5 of the last 6; this version only won 2 of the last 6 while utterly bombing at home vs Pardubice. Finally, that Sparta knew all too well they’re still to host Plzeň and Slavia; now they visit them.

Ultimately, it’d be easy to see the 2% likelihood of rising to the throne from three years ago, compare it to the 1% likelihood above, and conclude it’s a fool’s errand anyway. Maybe it is. But you’ve got to remember those two per cent were the product of results spanning five mostly miserable years. This one per cent, meanwhile, is the most the model could muster despite two recent titles. The 2023 forecast was weighed down by the past; this one isn’t.

Peak Gain: Ostrava 3:0 (away)
Peak Loss: Pardubice 2:4 (home)

Toughest Assignments Left: Slavia (A), Plzeň (A)
Softest Assignments Left: Slovácko (H), Dukla (A)

The Big Question
Can Vindahl rebound amid all the noise surrounding him?

It’s clear Brian Priske et co. are bloody tired of answering Peter Vindahl-related questions… but we have no reason to be. At this point, the Dane is not so much an elephant in the room as he is a wrecking ball swinging through it. It would’ve been bad enough had Sparta simply refused to upgrade Vindahl following his mediocre sophomore season in Prague; it’s even worse they refuse to do anything to the goalkeeping department now — after witnessing their no. 1 drop down from allowing an already depressing 0.21 goals above expectations per game to 0.25, and his (retained) backup nearly single-handedly torpedo their MOL Cup run.

There’s putting faith in a man who’s done it before; and then there’s plain stubbornness.

It’s true none of the two title-winning runs was powered by any outstanding goalkeeping. Both 22/23 Matěj Kovář and 23/24 Peter Vindahl landed in the 65th percentile per prevented non-penalty goals. But between 24/25 and this fall, Vindahl is now minus-11.3 in the same. He was down to the 31st percentile last summer, and he’s on pace to finish even lower this term. Of all the goalkeepers who fit inside the Top 300 on my MVP leaderboard, only Jáchym Šerák of Pardubice — now buried in the 2nd tier — has made for a worse shot stopper on balance. Even though Sparta are, in aggregate, supposed to benefit from facing the worst finishers (underhitting its collective xGFExpected Goals For (xGF) estimates how many goals a team should have scored based on shot quality, location, and context. by 4.5 goals), they boast the third worst goalkeeping anyway.

There’s not doing enough in the old discipline of shot-stopping; and then there’s this.

Perhaps even more worryingly, Vindahl has taken a step back in the one area that had carried him through all the many lows in the past: targeted distribution to the final third. Where he directed 1.7 passes towards the attacking penalty box per 24/25 game, he now completes 0.9.

The X-Factor
An eventually settled back three

For a side so adamant in deploying the 3-4-3/5-4-1 formation, with Wyscout attributing it to Sparta for 83% of their total minutes across all competitions, Brian Priske hasn’t enjoyed nearly enough rigidity at possibly the most important position of all — the centre back. Going strictly by RCB-CB-LCB roles assigned on the given matchday, guess how many different back three variants Priske had sorted through across the two main competitions before finally settling on Ševínský-Sørensen-Vydra to clinch the Top 8 Conference League spot?

Twenty, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty. And that’s while considering merely starting line-ups.

Adam Ševínský has popped up in all three roles. So did Patrik Vydra, after opening the season as a central midfielder. Asger Sørensen might as well be the next in line to try everything.

Despite boasting the second-best non-penalty xGAExpected Goals Against (xGA) estimates how many goals a team should have conceded based on shot quality, location, and context. on the season, this is naturally a problem. The behaviour in the box has been an issue all season long, leading to Sparta overseeing the second-least successful entries into their penalty box per one goal conceded (5.74). Flicking between six different left centre backs certainly did contribute to Sparta owning only the 5th-best left-hand side channel per positional xGA. As many as six Chance Liga sides, meanwhile, defended the crucial central channel better than Priske’s outfit.

In January 2023, Slavia were at a similar crossroads when I wrote in my Big Question section:

Just this season, before the end of August, Trpišovský had sorted through five different starting centre back variations — and that’s not counting the three-at-the-back experiment vs Raków and brief in-game adjustments involving Tomáš Holeš or Ibrahim Traoré dropping into the backline. In October against Mladá Boleslav, a sixth option (Ousou-Oscar) got tested — and we all remember how long that one lasted (not even 10 minutes).

That same winter, Slavia splashed up to €3m on Igoh Ogbu who was supposed to bring about a permanent fix — and somewhat belatedly did. Sparta have now stood pat, trusting their own investments from 2025 amounting to roughly €3m, Uchenna and Jakub Martinec. “Standing pat” has been Sparta’s transfer strategy of choice far too often recently, but the jury is out on whether this particular decision ends up benefitting them in the long run.

Four members of the Top 20. Three of them sound about right, one is completely off. Even though Veljko Birmančević had a run of four straight games with a goal, three of them didn’t do much/anything for improving Sparta’s prospects. Similar to Ladra, he’s up there by means of accumulation, mostly contributing as a secondary chance creator, which doesn’t amount to much when it comes to public perception. He’s also scored peculiarly high by Deník Sport writers (his average mark of 6.1 sitting joint-second on team), so kindly blame them instead!

Ultimately, with Birmančević potentially facing a longer spell on the sidelines, it’s a three-way race for the MVP title anyway. Albion Rrahmani leads the way as someone who simply makes things happen at the highest rate in the league, adding a ton of value through his 7 goals alone. Kaan Kairinen is living through a fantastic bounce-back season, already helping to create 5 important goals and further supporting 14 open-play opportunities; he wrapped up the previous campaign with 3 and 8 respectively. Finally, Lukáš Haraslín just keeps on doing Haraslín things in what is now a gold autumn standard of his: vastly limited sample. More than 800 MVP points from 900 mins is simply magnificent; courtesy of 11 goal contributions and the same amount of primary chance-creating actions. He’s behind 5 game-winners.

The Wild Card

While Joao Grimaldo presumably arrives to feast on his playing time, and Garang Kuol may also be poised to take an extra bite or two in 2026, John Mercado still deserves our attention. As opposed to Birmančević, Rrahmani and Haraslín, the majority of his chance-creating actions (9/14) were primary and his total of 6 goal contributions should be easily boosted come May. His two bad defensive plays leading to goals against cost him roughly 50 MVP points, though, so the key for success might be not to start him at left wingback anymore.

The Shake-Up

It seems like Sparta might have unearthed a Kairinen copy in Andrew Irving, another slower but technical leftie, yet the more impactful shake-up is happening at RWB. Angelo Preciado is no more, while the least Peruvian-sounding Peruvian, Oliver Sonne, belatedly arrives to plug the hole — most likely behind Pavel Kadeřábek who should be swiftly moving up the pecking order. That’s got the makings of a smart move, because the veteran was the main reason why Sparta’s right-hand side channel looked so strong defensively early on, whereas Preciado was then a firm part of the problem in posing too little threat down the right (4th-worst xGF).

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