2025/26 team preview: FK Dukla Praha

In a way, FK Dukla Praha find themselves in much the same boat MFK Karviná were in last summer. They, too, are waving goodbye to coaching from a bygone era — only here it’s condensed into one name rather than spread out like with the Silesians. In its place comes a young coaching staff pledging a possession-heavy brand of football, hoping to facilitate the club’s entire transformation in the process. That would be, crucially, done with the backing of new majority owner Matěj Turek, a 40-something involved in a number of start-ups or fixer-uppers, taking over from soon-to-be 70-year-old Petr Paukner. Fittingly, it was Karviná who issued a timely reminder to Dukla on Day 1: “This won’t be easy.”

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2025/26 team preview: FC Zlín

A cynic would say FC Zlín are returning in the same shape they were relegated in. The cynic would, in fact, often hail from Zlín’s own fandom. The same stadium in acute need of fixing up, the same owner of 25 years, the same vice-president who is now a Czech FA vice-chairman on top of it, and the same pragmatic, defence-first coach betting on the same types of players including a throwback striker up top. One major change, and possibly even a source of hope, is personified by sporting manager Pavel Hoftych whose involvement is showing on an unusually active transfer window for a promoted club.

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2025/26 team preview: Bohemians Praha 1905

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.

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2025/26 team preview: FC Viktoria Plzeň

Whenever Viktoria Plzeň have climbed the table in recent past, it meant one thing and one thing only: a title. In 2011, they went from 5th straight to 1st — just like three years ago. In between, they had turned three more podium finishes (2012–13, 2014–15, 2017–18) into the ultimate glory. Now, for a change, we are talking incremental progress — from 3rd to 2nd, from 70 points to 74, from a UEFA Conference League quarter-final to a UEFA Europa League Round of 16 — but meaningful progress nonetheless, not least because of Koubek’s Sophomore Year Curse ©. And if Plzeň navigate three tricky UCL play-off rounds (a tall task), or manage to hold off Priske’s Sparta and close the gap on Slavia at least a little bit (potentially an even taller one), the oldest coach in the league will have done it again.

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2025/26 team preview: FK Pardubice

When FK Pardubice announced their RESTART last summer, this is most certainly not what they had in mind. Gone is the main sponsor after which the arena was named, head coach, sporting director, technical director/director of recruitment and chairman from that time; though in the case of the latter, Vít Zavřel — promoted in his place — insists Vladimír Pitter still “works the same way he used to”, whatever the hell that means. Granted, the initiative rather targeted a shift in visual identity or fan engagement, but even on that front, “maybe the font has changed” was one of my consultant’s sarcastic response. Most notably on the fan engagement side, the club has succeeded in uniting all the fans against itself.

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2025/26 team preview: AC Sparta Praha

You’re not supposed to step into the same river twice — but Brian Priske isn’t much for proverbs, as evidenced by his less-than-blessed attempt to prove that the grass is greener in Rotterdam. Just a year after guiding Sparta to a long-awaited double, he’s back at Letná, undeterred by a short-lived and rather damp detour at Feyenoord. It wasn’t exactly a triumphant leap to a bigger pond, but Sparta fans won’t mind. To them, he’s still the man who had turned water into wine — and they’ll happily take a second vintage.

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2025/26 team preview: SK Slavia Praha

This, really, is how you respond to a three-year title drought — by completing what now stands as the most dominant season of the analytics era, narrowly eclipsing your own covid-affected 2020/21 campaign. It marked the first time a Czech club has ever cleared the 90-point mark. And while Sparta’s 2013/14 side steadfastly remains the best team in history (at least by points per game), Slavia show no signs of slowing down and could end up lapping Lavička’s iconic team, too. Their summer was somehow even more ambitious — from a larger-than-ever kit project to a flurry of new partners, including OMV and Coca-Cola — all in preparation for a full-throttle return to the Champions League.

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2025/26 team preview: FK Teplice

For too long, Teplice fans had been left clinging to false hope of hearing from a new owner. When it finally happened this April, though, it was everything they’d hoped for — and then some. Billionaire Milan Kratina has not only brought smart presence and concrete vision for a refurbished Stínadla or a new training facilities; he’s also kept the previous main sponsor AGC on board, extending the deal for another 9 years with a focus on funding the club’s youth setup above all. If only the squad had matched the ambition off the pitch…

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2025/26 team preview: FK Jablonec

There’s symmetry in how both Northern Bohemian clubs have handled their respective ownership takeovers — they both (more or less) started in 2024 following a period of vanishing success. But there’s a far greater asymmetry to it all. Where Slovan Liberec were getting a clean break from their late 1990s saviour, including full-blown re-brand, FK Jablonec are likely headed for yet another period of remote club control by Miroslav Pelta, who’s had some sort of a say at the club since 1991 — practically uninterrupted.

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2025/26 team preview: FC Slovan Liberec

There’s a fine line to be tread between ambition and arrogance. It becomes an even more delicate balance to strike when you set out to plant ambition in a place where it had long been a foreign concept — and more so still if you do it with a vision to change not only that particular place but, ultimately and by extension, the entire Czech footballing landscape. How clubs outside the current Top 4 now think about the way they operate and deal with issues like financial sustainability has inevitably been shaped by what Ondřej Kania & co. have done in Liberec since early 2024. And whatever your stance on their individual decisions, this broader influence is undeniable — and hugely significant in the long run.

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