Author Archives → CzechFooty

2025/26 winter stocktake: SK Slavia Praha

In a way, history repeats itself — almost OCD-like in its precision. Just like last year, Slavia have a very good league autumn behind them which saw their title chances increased from ridiculous heights to nearly 100%. Just like last year, they also celebrated the calendar flip with a brutal pair of results on the continental scene — only now they didn’t suddenly tank their prospects of advancing, since they were competing a level higher. Just like last year, they own a 7-point lead at the top — only this time, it’s Sparta doing the chasing instead of Plzeň. That alone makes Slavia’s pole position a tad more fragile. But only really a tad.

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2025/26 winter stocktake: AC Sparta Praha

Brian 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 Christmas leaders has already served Sparta well once, and Slavia do seem more fragile than in 2025…

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2025/26 winter stocktake: FC Viktoria Plzeň

For two years under Miroslav Koubek, Plzeň made for a surprise continental (Top 4) contender and a fun domestic pretender. Then, as 25/26 started to shape up like yet another campaign of high-octane victories and frustrating losses setting up a 15+ point gap on the title-winners, the club decided to pivot. Enough was enough; it was time to start building for future, without really stopping to live in the moment like Koubek’s Viktoria always appeared to do. Having launched a daring retool on the fly, Plzeň are entering 2026 with seemingly nothing and yet everything at stake, both at the same time.

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2025/26 winter stocktake: FC Slovan Liberec

This and last season have got a peculiar common denominator for Slovan Liberec: a home autumn loss to arch rivals from Jablonec nad Nisou, after which alarm bells began blaring around coach Radoslav Kováč. The key difference lies in the reaction. After getting blown out of the water in 2024 (0:5), Liberec proceeded to limp forward, winning just three of their remaining nine games of the year. In 2025, Slovan used the 0:2 loss as a springboard to launch a convincing comeback, utterly demolishing all their November opponents to bring Kováč his first Coach of the Month honours of his career. Now, entering 2026 on the league’s longest active point streak outside Slavia, they “just” need a suitable follow-up…

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2025/26 winter stocktake: MFK Karviná

Twenty-point-seven. That’s how many extra points the model had to shovel Karviná’s way between this and last winter. A year ago, they were a definite but somewhat mild surprise after a worryingly poor finish to 2024. Now, they are a legit Top 5 threat; their actual point total almost equal to their expected one, their only two losses by more than a goal both involving a red card. MFK Karviná are a real deal, and after withstanding the pressure to perform another big winter sell-out, they seem ready to challenge like 22/23 Bohemians.

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2025/26 winter stocktake: FK Jablonec

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?

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2025/26 winter stocktake: SK Sigma Olomouc

I don’t think we’d had such a situation before: a cup-winning coach needing a public vote of confidence just half a year after delivering the unexpected trophy and Top 6 placement, having just secured the Conference League’s next phase (with all the luck in the world on his side, granted) for the first time in club’s history and outperformed its league projection (a conservative one, granted) to a considerable degree. Unusual, but perhaps increasingly more common now with the flurry of rich owners. The scope of one club’s potential today may look very different in a few months. Thus, Tomáš Janotka is suddenly looking at a prove-it spring despite proving himself at almost every step of the way so far.

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2025/26 winter stocktake: FC Zlín

In summer 2022, Jakub’s model debuted on Czech Footy with a bold prediction of its own: FC Zbrojovka Brno, that year’s promoted side, were tipped to surge straight into 10th. It raised eyebrows — until eight rounds in, with 14 points on the board, the model suddenly looked prescient. FC Zlín found themselves in the identical sweet spot at the same stage this season, likewise projected for a Top-10 finish and on 14 points after 8. But where Zbrojovka closed the autumn with three straight defeats, Ševci managed to halt the slide. They, too, began to spiral — until the demolition of Sigma flipped the narrative on its head.

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2025/26 winter stocktake: FC Hradec Králové

Even though FC Hradec Králové have basically followed their summer forecast to a T, it feels like the club — and especially the third-year coach David Horejš — is facing a pivotal spring. The sizeable step forward in their anniversary year hasn’t happened, and with the new billionaire-backed ownership group freshly imposing a new steering structure, the pressure is officially on to start delivering on the promise of a couple of win-now transfer windows. Nothing less than Top 6 is most definitely the order of the day; a bare minimum.

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2025/26 winter stocktake: Bohemians Praha 1905

For a few years now, Bohemians have grown into a symbol of mediocrity and I myself have not exactly fought the broad idea. That being said, it’s not like every Bohemians season absolutely must be tagged as “mediocre”; this one being a prime example. In terms of table standings, ‘Klokani’ have been the unluckiest side — borderline Top 6 per xP but borderline relegation play-off candidate in reality — and a mirror opposite of teams we’ve just profiled, tanking their season horribly in the last three (goalless) rounds of 2025.

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