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 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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