Post Category → Season Previews

2026/27 team profile: SK Slavia Praha

Last summer, their first without any sort of European qualification in a decade, was uncharacteristically quiet for Slavia. There was no marquee signing, just a scouting video making waves. Pavel Tykač was already old news, while the accompanying mega-deal with Tipsport was probably perceived as little more than a drop in the financial ocean. The biggest news, meanwhile, was a new club-run fanshop or the establishment of a C-team. Šeberov was best left unmentioned, much like today. Then the season happened. And now, the recent movie The Drama pales in comparison to whatever is happening in and around Eden. Talk about the calm before the storm. And the fallout is still unfolding as we speak.

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2026/27 team profile: FC Viktoria Plzeň

It must be tiring to be the third wheel as consistently as Viktoria Plzeň has been for its Prague rivals. Ever since stunning Czech football by snatching the title in 2022, they have finished 17, 17, 16 and again 17 points behind the eventual champions. Never dropping out of the Top 3 is nice (Sparta cannot say that in the same period, after all), but a club entering its first full campaign while backed by the richest Czech can’t possibly be satisfied with that. And so here we are: both the under-pressure coach Martin Hyský and the powerful show-runner Adolf Šádek openly declaring a title bid, perfectly echoing the name of this wonderful podcast: S klackem proti tankům (“bringing a stick to a tank fight”).

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2026/27 team profile: FC Baník Ostrava

One for the ages. A phrase normally reserved for historic feel-good stories like the one Hradec Králové just wrote, or the one Ostrava’s little sister Karviná would’ve authored had it not been for that tiny little match-fixing incident. Baník, however, proved to be the exception: its story for the ages was one of spectacular self-destruction, an epic collapse brought about entirely by footballing means — with the club still likely to end the sorry campaign comfortably in the black. Baník may have gone from a Top 3 finish straight to a Bottom 6 finish for a shocking third time in my lifetime, but this one still hits different.

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2026/27 team profile: FC Zbrojovka Brno

Not often does a neutral look forward to the arrival of a promoted side as much as this summer. First of all, everyone seems eager for the return of Martin Svědík, who won an impressive 32 of his 42 competitive matches in charge of Zbrojovka. It will be refreshing to watch a newcomer with the financial muscle to rival most clubs for a player’s signature and remain competitive for years to come. And it’s objectively good for the Czech top tier to welcome a big-city club that has been growing its fanbase in the second tier through excellent work in marketing and beyond, rather than losing support as so many others do.

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2026/27 team profile: FC Hradec Králové

Each year, the football team of FC Hradec Králové seem to raise the bar even higher. In 2023, they returned to their hometown with a brand-new stadium, filled it to the rafters on a regular basis and even welcomed the Czech national team, coming within a whisker of an unlikely European adventure. In 2024/25, they lifted their point-per-game average to 1.44, setting up the scene for only their second Top 4 placement since the shock title win in 1960. All along the way, FCHK’s marketing team has been opening new chapters as effortlessly as opening a pack of Bon Pari, effortlessly swapping the club’s 2025 First Republic-themed appeal to older generations for a fresher look in 2026, continuously adding more exciting layers to the brand. It’s as if the club simply cannot put a foot wrong.

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2025/26 team preview: FK Mladá Boleslav

Last summer, we noted the weirdly lowkey, unenthusiastic club takeover by David Trunda, wondering if he wasn’t there just to “score populist points ahead of the Czech FA chairman election”. Turns out he absolutely was — and now Mladá Boleslav are stuck in an owner-less void, almost entirely at the mercy of Slavia, the very club that helped Trunda become Czech football’s boss. The good news? It can hardly get worse than the spring. And FKMB are now armed with a head coach who’s got serious potential to let the fans forget about what’s going on upstairs by implementing a ‘heavy-metal’ brand of football downstairs.

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2025/26 team preview: 1. FC Slovácko

There’s hardly been a worse follow-up to a club managerial legend’s departure — the second biggest Czech city might offer up the only real contender. Josef Masopust, not often thought of that way, is actually Zbrojovka Brno’s most celebrated coach; the man who brought the only title to town in 1978 and signed off with two more Top 3 finishes. Once he left, Zbrojovka promptly collapsed from 2nd to 12th and, within three years, dropped out of the top flight altogether for six mournful seasons. Are Slovácko on a similar trajectory after making such an unsure first step into the post-Martin Svědík darkness?

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2025/26 team preview: FC Hradec Králové

‘Votroci’ are officially gunning for Europe. After coming within an inch in 2024 — to the shock of many — they now want to make it the norm. New ownership should be in place by the end of September, and they look set to doggedly hold onto all of their key players until then; furiously adding high-end, foreign battle-tested quality in Vladimír Darida, Mick van Buren or earlier Tomáš Petrášek to the misfit core built around Adam Zadražil, Daniel Horák and Filip Čihák. The city is celebrating 800 years since its first recorded mention; the club is turning 120 with a fancy new stadium still gleaming, fresh money coming their way, and the potential fifth UEFA spot very much up for grabs. If not now, then when?

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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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