Post Category → Season Previews

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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2025/26 team preview: MFK Karviná

New horizons unlocked. Just like most of us predicted a year ago, MFK Karviná the club has entered a new era with Martin Hyský the manager. Hardly just your regular coach, the former Vlašim gaffer is making sure Karviná doesn’t become a hollow feeder club of Slavia without its own personality and agenda. Through his charisma, tactical acumen, accountability and sheer dedication to make it all work in a region where Karviná have long fed off scraps, Hyský has — in a way — become for Karviná what Janotka has been for Sigma: a quietly transformative figure reshaping not just results, but identity.

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2025/26 team preview: FC Baník Ostrava

The word “vibes” is growing in popularity even among the Czech-speaking younger generation, and FC Baník Ostrava of 2023-25 could easily demonstrate what it means. On the face of it, the club just rattled off two Top 4 finishes, both remarkable in their own right — the first one marked a delayed return to UEFA competitions, breaking the glass ceiling of sorts, while the second one meant a suitable follow-up via a jump by one place and a whole lot of points. But the vibes… boy, the vibes were different. Where 2023/24 was an uneasy step in the right direction, 2024/25 was a confident statement of belonging.

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2025/26 team preview: SK Sigma Olomouc

If you were to now design a dream Sigma Olomouc campaign in a lab, you couldn’t — the baffled lab operator would keep on mumbling “I’ve only just finished the task”. Through all the victories — first trophy since 2012 and return to the continental stage after 7 years, thanks to a beloved club icon drawing decent football from a cast of largely inexperienced homegrown talent — there was just one ever-present regret: if only there were more people in the stands cheering on. Now, with the clean break from the much-maligned ownership structure, there’s hope for a full-blown success story. On and off the pitch.

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