A Scottish Pioneer in Bohemia

1905-1930, Praha, Austria-Hungary (later Czechoslovakia)

SK Slavia Praha appoint their first ever manager, John William Madden (Johnny Madden). The former Celtic player brings with him novel tactical ideas and strict, disciplinarian views on player behaviour and conditioning. Madden's methods help to establish Slavia Praha as a leading light in the region. Over the course of twenty five years, the Scotsman ushers in a golden era of success, winning multiple cups and Czechoslovakian championships. During this time, Slavia win 134 out of 169 domestic matches, as well as winning 304 out of 429 international games.

Madden becomes recognised as the “father of Czechoslovakian football”.

1919-1923, Praha, Czechoslovakia

Recognising the success of Slavia under Madden, Sparta Praha appoint Renfrewshire-born, former Arsenal centre-half John Dick as the club's new manager. The Scotsman helps to modernise the tactical and fitness side of the club's approach, leading to immediate and lasting success. Sparta win five consecutive national championships between 1919 and 1923, losing just once across the period. This earns them the nickname ‘Iron Sparta’ and cements John Dick's place as one of the most important figures in the club's history. 

2023, Praha, Czech Republic

Welcome to A Scottish Pioneer in Bohemia, a story set in the world of Football Manager 2024. 

I'm Émi, the new head coach of Bohemians Praha. Before I give a bit of narration and context to the beginning of this save, I'll say a bit about myself and how I came to be the manager of Bohemka. 

I was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to a Scots-Irish father and Czech-Slovak mother; a true internationalist from birth. 

I grew up supporting Glasgow Celtic, and like any young bhoy kicking a ball about in the city's streets and parks, I dreamed of playing for the club I adored. At the age of 8, I entered the academy system at Queen's Park Football Club where I remained until the age of fifteen. Having been cut loose from pro-youth football, I attempted to chart a pathway into the professional game via the junior football route. I started out with the u-20s side at Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC in the West of Scotland pyramid. By the age of seventeen, I was a squad player in the first-team, playing on the right side of defence or in a defensive midfield slot. By the time I was twenty, I was an important player at Rob Roy, but it was becoming more and more apparent that junior football might be my ceiling. 

I transferred to Pollok FC and started on the SFA's coaching education programme. After excelling in my studies, I decided to focus more on the coaching route, giving up my playing role at Pollok to volunteer as a coach with St Roch's FC lower down the West of Scotland pyramid. During this time I had the opportunity to attend educational seminars in the Netherlands, Spain, and England, as well as observing training sessions at Celtic, Rangers, and the Scottish National Team. 

I took up my first paid coaching role aged twenty-five, working with Glasgow City in the Scottish women's game. After a couple of years with City, a family friend put me in touch with one of the head youth coaches at Bohemians Praha, the club that my maternal family support and are members of. I was offered the chance to work in the club's academy, while staying with my uncle not far from the facilities. I headed over to Praha and impressed immediately. Within two years I was given the responsibility of managing the club's B team midway through a campaign, after the previous head coach left for a better paid role at Dukla Praha. I impressed in the six or so months that were left of the season. 

In May 2023, the head coach of the first-team, Jaroslav Veselý, stepped down with immediate effect. After a number of weeks of deliberation and a few knock backs from prospective candidates, I was approached by chairman Jakub Jakubowicz and asked to step up from my role as B team head-coach to take charge of first team affairs. 

Needless to say, the offer came as a complete surprise to myself and my family. Naturally, there is apprehension in the Bohemians-friendly elements of the local and national press, and among the club's membership, but there has also been vocal support thanks to people who know my family and understand the efforts I've put in since joining the club. 

It's been a whirlwind few weeks, but I'm looking forward to getting started. 

Take a short tram journey from the historic centre of Praha, and you'll arrive at a stop called ‘Bohemians’ in the Vršovice district of the city. Directly behind this stop sits Ďolíček, the home of Bohemians Praha 1905. The modesty of the stadium speaks to the general standing of the club within Czech football. Bohemka aren't even the biggest club in Vršovice; that title goes to Slavia Praha, based ten minutes up the road at the Fortuna Arena (Eden). Despite the modest surroundings, the local patrons at Ďolíček are among the most loyal and fanatical supporters in the country. Revelling in their image as the ‘alternative’ club in Praha, the atmosphere generated by the hardcore element of the Bohemians support is well known. In the mid '00s, it was the supporters of the club who stepped in to stave off insolvency, as Bohemka went through a period of financial turmoil. This has helped to establish Bohemians as a true community club. 

Bohemka's on-field history isn't much to write home about. In recent times, there are only some lower league triumphs to mention, as well as a Tipsport Liga title in 2014 (a winter tournament involving clubs from Central Europe). The last time the club lifted the MOL Cup (the Czech FA Cup) was in 1982, and the last time they won a top division title was in 1983 (the Czechoslovakian First League). Historically, the club have went through periods of bouncing between divisions, but they've enjoyed a prolonged stint in the top flight since 2013. 

The most famous player to represent the club throughout its history is undoubtedly Antonín Panenka. The attacking midfielder came through the club's youth ranks and played in the first team between 1967 and 1981. During this time, he also won the European Championships with Czechoslovakia, scoring the winning penalty in the final against West Germany with the famous ‘Panenka’ chip down the middle of the goal. Another of the club's favourite sons is Josef Jindřišek, who at the age of forty-three, still plays for Bohemians at the beginning of this save. He is the record appearance maker for the team. 

Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Czech Football League has been dominated by three clubs: Sparta Praha (13 titles); Slavia Praha (7 titles); Viktoria Plzeň (6 titles). At the beginning of this save, the trio have won 26 of the last 30 titles between them. Only Slovan Liberec (3 titles) and Baník Ostrava (1 title) have interrupted this dominance. This is the contemporary context into which I step as manager of Bohemians. There is an established order in the country that is difficult to break into. 

Off the pitch, Bohemians have crumbling and outdated infrastructure that will need renewing over the course of the next few years. But in order to do that, we'll need to improve the financial standing of the club. That means setting up a player trading model that brings in a decent amount of money, as well as trying our best to get up the league towards European places at some point. Part of the club's current plans involve building a new stadium, which will no doubt add further financial difficulties for us to work through.

The average age of the current first-team squad is 29, with no less than twelve players over the age of 30. That doesn't give us a great deal of valuable assets to cash in on to help rebuild things. 

Anyway, this is the overview of Bohemians Praha at the beginning of the story. A community club fighting against an established order in the country, with plenty of off-field challenges to work through before it can truly flourish. 

The early part of my tenure with Bohemians Praha would be defined by how well we transitioned from the Old Guard of players to a new generation. With a squad average age of 29, and very few sellable assets on the books, the club needed a complete rethink in terms of its transfers and squad building strategies. Many of the players in the 30+ age range had twelve months or less left on their contracts, so a natural cull was on its way. But we let the market know that we were open for business and ready to consider cash bids for the majority of our first team squad. 

There were one or two exceptions to our restructuring project. One such player was Lukáš Hůlka. 

In the early days of the summer, we fended off interest from Viktoria Plzeň to secure him on a new three year contract. At 28, I felt he could be a fixture in our current five year plan. It might also be possible to see some money for him in a year or so, should interest for his services reappear. 

We set out a basic tactical framework that we would play around with over preseason. The results were encouraging.

With the hard graft of preseason training and games behind us, we could now turn our attention to the stuff that truly mattered: the competitive football. 

Our first three games of the season were massive. We had a two-legged tussle with Maccabi Tel Aviv in the UEFA Conference League, with a Praha derby against AC Sparta sandwiched between them. 

Show Spoiler

 

 

We've had quite the beginning to the season. After four FORTUNA:LIGA matches, we remain unbeaten with two wins and two draws. But it's in Europe where the real story of July/August took place. 

A comfortable 8-4 aggregate win over Maccabi Tel Aviv in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League set us up with a third round tie against Swedish outfit Kalmar. The home leg against the Swedes ended goalless, as we struggled to secure an advantage heading to Scandinavia thanks to an early red card. But we stood up to the challenge of the away leg, securing a 1-4 win to proceed to the final qualification round, and a daunting tie against Turkish giants Fenerbahce. 

The night of the 24th of August 2023 produced a historic result in the history of Bohemians Praha. With the Turks down to ten men early in the first-half, we had them on the ropes by half-time. 2-0 up and looking very comfortable, we could have been forgiven for settling for the result and heading to Turkey with that lead intact. But I knew what kind of challenge awaited us in the cauldron of Istanbul, so we kept up the pressure and produced a result that will echo through the ages. 

The return game in Turkey was one of the most nerve-wracking games I've ever been involved in. Just as Fenerbahce lost a man in the first-leg, so, too, did we find ourselves down to ten men in the second leg. It totally disrupted our shape and the heads seemed to go. At 4-0 with ten minutes to play, we basically camped on the edge of our own area and tried to avoid the disaster of throwing away a five goal aggregate lead. We just managed it! 

While there was a sense of euphoria at having guided Bohemians Praha to group stage football for the first time, there could be no denying my concerns about how we might cope with some of these types of away fixtures. Perhaps the need to score six goals made Fenerbahce just that bit more determined to stuff us, but we'd surely face similar, if not better opponents in the competition proper, and we needed to do better. 

The draw for the UEFA Conference League Group Phase was harsh on us. We'd be facing Bundesliga and Premier League opponents, with Bate Borisov offering the only serious chance of getting some kind of result. It would be a good experience for us, but after the Fenerbahce away leg, I did dread the idea of going to Villa Park with this group of players. 

The money that we received for group stage qualification doubled our bank balance. But we remained cautious in the transfer market. I didn't want to sign players for the hell of it, so I held off on some targets who might have helped with numbers, but not necessarily quality. We managed to get a couple of fringe players off the books, but the only addition to the team would be arriving in January. 

Byaruhanga was snapped up on a pre-contract deal. At 21, he brings much needed youth to the squad, and I see him as a direct replacement for some of the older defensive-minded midfielders in the squad. A deal worth £300 p/w represents a low risk move, so I'm really pleased to get this done. 

We tied down another couple of players to three year contracts. All three of our main centre-backs are now committed to the club for the foreseeable future. While I think we could get away with having our current left-backs for another season after this one, at least one of our right-backs will have to be replaced. We also badly need a new goalkeeper, with a seventeen year-old academy player currently holding down the no.1 jersey due to lack of alternatives. 

Adam Kadlec is one of the better players to come out of our academy, and I've been trying to involve him regularly in the games so far this season. He's actually managed to bag four goals in nine appearances due to his aerial prowess. But there aren't many who look to be capable of following in his footsteps at the moment. With that in mind we invested some of the Conference League money into our junior coaching and youth recruitment network. It will take a while to bring it up to the desired standard, but the first pieces are now in place. 

The media are of the opinion that our good early season form is down to the heroics of veteran forward Necid. There is undoubtedly some truth to that. Necid has been a great outlet for us in the target forward role, and has notched in five goals so far. 

He is, however, one of those players we're going to have to learn to live without. At 34, and on £2,1k p/w, I think we need to part ways next summer. We'll squeeze as much juice as we can get from him over the rest of this season, though. 

These are the results from September through October. Domestically, we've basically been flawless. In amongst the league results was our 2-1 win over Slavia Praha in the Vršovické derby; a win that shows we mean business in the FORTUNA:LIGA. 

We suffered emphatic defeats in Frankfurt and at home to Aston Villa in Europe, but a 3-1 win over BATE brought home £400k in prize money; a significant fee for a club our size. 

Great career history. Good luck.

Been to watch Bohs, Slavia and Sparta play on various occasions when doing a speedway related holiday.

Surprisingly decent standard, good luck for the rest of the season.

Brilliant detail, and good luck with the career. The backstory struck me, as a good mate from my youth moved to Prague from Glasgow, ironically, to stay with his Uncle initially. Lost touch over the years, but a great guy and he loved FM (or CM as it was then) too. Might have inspired a lower league Scottish career that I upload here once the window closes.

The fixtures throughout November and December brought us into the lengthy winter break, and there was a sharp contrast in our fortunes across both months. We started very strongly in November, getting through to the quarter finals of the MOL Cup, picking up seven league points, and bagging another lucrative win in the Conference League against BATE. But towards the end of the month, things started to turn sour. 

We were unlucky in defeat against FK Viktoria, but Eintracht Frankfurt demolished us to kill off our Conference League hopes. We then played admirably at Letná against Sparta Praha, but ultimately fell short. We stopped our three game winless run with a win at home to Viktoria Plzeň, but were crushed in consecutive games against Aston Villa and Slovan Liberec. The Slovan defeat was a particular surprise, given we had been pretty solid in domestic football throughout the campaign to date. Even in defeat, we competed well enough. My theory is that we simply ran out of steam, with morale also suffering after a streak of one win in six games. Unfortunately the next time we'd have the chance to set things right after such a bruising loss would be in February when the league resumed. 

The poor run of form in late November/December allowed FK Viktoria and Sparta Praha to leapfrog us. We're still in a very respectable position, and I'd be so happy if the season ended now and we qualified for Europe, but there's far too much football to be played to start dreaming about that. 

We are the top scorers in the division, but our defensive record is almost as bad as two of the bottom three, so it's clear what our main issues are. I'm an Ange Postecoglou inspired manager, though, so I'm not currently planning any major tactical tweaks to try and make us more defensively sound. I believe the solutions are to have better control over games, and to score even more goals. That'll require improving the squad when the opportunity allows. 

I do have some early transfer news to share, even though we're not in the full swing of the window yet. We managed to secure a loan with an option to buy deal with a young midfielder from FK Viktoria:

We have also secured a pre-contract agreement with one of Sparta Praha's B team midfielders, currently on loan at Jablonec. 

We're currently exploring another pre-contract agreement with one of Slavia's B team wingers, but there is competition for his signature. 

I don't expect there to be many January arrivals, as I'm more interested in making moves next summer when a number of players leave at the end of their contract, freeing up our wage bill. So I'm really just exploring possible deals like those above, where we can get someone for free come the end of June. We also have identified a couple of long-term targets that I'd be willing to spend some money on. Here they are below:

You'll notice that all of our signing targets are under-25 y/o. This is obviously proof of the change in our club strategy. 

We completed the deal for the Slavia Praha winger mentioned in the previous post. He will join in June, after his contract expires. We have also entered talks with another Slavia player whose contract expires at the end of the season. 

It will be smart business to get some of these deals completed before the summer, so that when our players in the final year of their deals leave, they'll be immediately replaced by younger guys who can come straight in and help us improve. 

We made another loan signing in January. We have an option to buy for £220k if we so choose.

Lukáš Sadílek is a bit of a coup for the club. He joined Sparta after impressing regularly for Slovácko, but things just haven't worked out in the capital. His availability has come at a good time for us, as we really needed someone to improve our right-side of attack. 

On the pitch we've started 2024 really well. With the exception of the defeat at home to Pardubice, we've had very positive results, and the performances have improved greatly from the end of 2023. We even managed to secure a result that will echo down the ages:

This game was a real smash and grab from us. Slavia had a couple of players sent off, but we looked like scoring every time we went forward. I think the presumption from them was that they could bowl us over with an ultra-attacking approach, but that played straight into our hands. If there's one thing we've done well this season it's attack, and they left themselves totally exposed at times. We didn't need to create too many chances, we just needed to be clinical when they came along, and we were. It is a result that I will personally savour for some time to come! 

We will meet Slavia Praha in the semi-finals of the MOL Cup thanks to our 5-3 quarter final victory over Jablonec. While we have enjoyed positive results against Slavia this season, I do think we'd do well to beat them in such a high stakes encounter. But we're in the last four, giving us a chance of a piece of silverware. That would truly make this a special season. 

There are a couple of players from our youth intake that I'm optimistic about. 

These guys will enter an u-19s side that is flying in their respective league. They'll also have the chance to progress to a B team that is also performing pretty well of late. So I hope that'll stand them in good stead as they work their way towards the first team. 

I've tried to summarise the end of our season multiple times now, but I keep getting a message saying that my post appears to be spam/advertisement. So I'll have to be light on detail and see if it lets me actually update the thread. 

We enjoyed a strong end to the campaign, eventually landing in third place. We were in second place going into the final matchday of the season, but our goalless draw at Eden against Slavia paved the way for FK Viktoria to snatch a Champions League spot from under our nose. Slavia were juggling the cup, the Conference League, and the league towards the end of the year, so they suffered a bit of poor form and fell into fourth place, but their MOL Cup win allowed them to take the Europa League spot away from us, leaving us in the UEFA Conference League for a second consecutive season. Slavia also reached the final of the Conference League, but lost 3-0 to Aston Villa. 

I'd like to say a bit more about things, but I'm just hoping this post actually gets published. So I can only sum up my feelings by saying I'm delighted at finishing third, but gutted we had a Champions League and a Europa League place snatched away from us at the death. We also broke the record for number of goals scored in the division with 103, and third place is the highest ever finish in Czech football for the club. 

Some more information about the season I had to leave out of the previous update:

The 2024/25 season is a year of renewal for Bohemians Praha. We've said goodbye to no less than thirty players overall, including the twenty-six we released above. Among the departures is Erik Prekop who left for Toronto FC for a record £2.9m 

Having scored 19 goals for us last season, the Slovakian forward will be a big miss. But the fee we commanded for him represents a progressive change in the club's transfer strategy. This is the kind of deal that we need to be doing more often. 

I've mentioned some of the players we have agreed pre-contract deals with already, so you can find them above. But here are some of the deals we've completed over the summer as part of our rebuild. 

We missed out on signing Lukáš Sadílek from Sparta Praha due to his wage demands, but he's currently transfer listed and there isn't much interest in him at present, so maybe a future deal will present itself. He contributed four goals and seven assists during his short loan spell last season. 

The average age of the squad has been brought down from 29 to 25, which is exactly what we wanted to see. I think we have some sellable assets on our hands now and a squad that can expect to challenge for the European places regularly. 

With the new faces settling in over preseason, I decided to switch from our 4-4-2 system to a 4-3-3 control possession style. This change reflects the type of player we have brought to the club, as well as an effort to deal with our leaky defence. I still want us to be a team that scores plenty of goals, so I won't be sacrificing that element of things, but the three man midfield will hopefully give us an opportunity to control games more and avoid the same number of end-to-end encounters we experienced last season. 

There is a quick turn around in Czech football, so we only had the chance to play four friendlies before the competitive action got underway, but the results were promising enough. 

I was pleased to see three clean sheets in the games, but I did have the chance to makes some tweaks to the original system. We play with an anchor-man in the DM slot, as opposed to a BWM, and I have utilised fullbacks instead of wingbacks for some more solidity. 

The main objective over the first couple of months of the season is to try and get ourselves group stage football in Europe. The opportunity to make a bit of money in the UEFA Conference League is too good to miss out on, but we know from last year's experience that there are some really difficult opponents in the qualification rounds. 

If ever there was a start to the season to let me know we are making positive strides as a club, surely this was it. Not only did we pick up ten points out of twelve in the league, keeping three clean sheets in four games, but we performed minor miracles in the UEFA Conference League qualifiers. 

The path to group stage football started straightforwardly enough against Bosnian opposition. We dispatched of Siroki Brijeg without much issue. But to be drawn against FC Twente in the third round felt harsh. We performed quite well in the Netherlands, but still ended up on the wrong end of a 1-0 scoreline. I felt confident we could take the Dutch side at home, and I was vindicated as we ran out 2-0 winners. It was a special result for the club against a much more seasoned European opponent, but the best was saved for last. 

The final qualifying round pitted us against Almeria of La Liga. In a nervy first leg in Praha, we bested the Spaniards 2-1, despite being down to ten men for much of the game. I felt happy to have beaten a team from one of the top European leagues in a one-off game, but having experienced some bruising away defeats in the competition last season, I braced myself for the response in the sweltering head of Andalusia. As always, we played to win, trying to avoid the trap of playing for a draw and getting tanked. What transpired was barely believable. Almeria pushed from minute one to try and claw back the single goal deficit, but they left themselves exposed at the back. We had a bit of pace in our attack now with Tanko playing off the right-hand side as an inside forward. This caused absolute havoc for the Spanish side, and we found ourselves 0-4 up before the hour mark. The scoreline didn't flatter us either, as we missed some opportunities to extend our lead. In the end we settled for four, and sailed through into the League Phase, with its promise of several millions. 

Key to our early season form has been this guy, one of our new signings from Slavia Praha's B team:

8 goals in 7 starts from the left-wing is remarkable numbers for his early days in a Bohemians shirt. I'm feeling very positive about his development, and reckon he could be one of our next seven figure departures down the line. 

I wanted the team to build on last season's excellent standards, but I could not have envisaged this kind of consistency so early on in my tenure. The fact that we've combined domestic results with a solid showing in Europe speaks to how far we've come as a club in such a short space of time. Every signing has been a solid choice, and I'm confident we can continue to build on what we've put together so far. I'm not sure where the ceiling is for us this season, but another crack at European football next year looks well within our grasp. 

Over the course of the Autumn months, I extended my stay with the club for another three years. 

I'm very much committed to the Bohemians project, and as I hinted at in the opening post of the thread, I'd like to become a pivotal figure in the history of the club. Someone who brings Bohemians onto the stage of Czech football history. 

While the Autumn has been overwhelmingly positive, we did get a bit of bad news during the period:

Our club record signing sustained a very serious injury and will miss pretty much the entire rest of the season. 

Thankfully just before the window shut in the summer, we pulled off a deadline day loan-to-buy deal for another Slavia Praha B team player:

I see him as a natural successor for Tomáš Necid. 

The festive season brought us plenty of joy, as we found ourselves pulling away from our nearest league rivals thanks to taking ten points from twelve. The Malmo victory also allowed us to qualify for the last sixteen of the UEFA Conference League, softening the blow of the scudding we took in France. 

Fighting on all fronts with a relatively thin squad would put some strain on our title push, but I was thrilled to see us make progress in Europe. 

We emerged from the long winter break with a renewed focus. The opportunity to pull off a Leicester City style title win was in our hands, and we also had the prospect of European progress and the MOL Cup. 

Our league form across February, March, and April was pretty solid, with only Slavia and Sparta tripping us up. That could have proved costly had they both not demonstrated a real lack of consistency against the other teams in the division. This is where I excelled. Even if I had started to struggle in the head-to-head derbies, beating the rest of the league was becoming pretty routine. By the time the league split came around in May, I was ten points clear of Slavia, meaning I only needed a couple more results to do the unthinkable!

The MOL Cup run was another highlight of our season so far, but the prospect of facing Slavia in the final was daunting. We hadn't gotten the better of them recently, so they'd probably fancy their chances against us in a one off game. 

Europe ended with a quarter final defeat to Anderlecht. I was disappointed with the defeat, because I felt we had competed really well across the two legs, but they had too much quality for us. 

The fixture computer had given us the opportunity to clinch the FORTUNA:LIGA title against Slavia at home. I can only imagine the scenes! 

History written! 

Well done squire, well done indeed.

What's next? Conquering the CL?

Much more modest aspirations. I want to ensure that we aren't just another Leicester City, and that we continue to be a club that fights for domestic silverware season upon season. That will require us continuing to maximise the relatively small budget we have at our disposal. There are no plans to start throwing big sums of money around, so Europe will probably simply be about cashing cheques for a while, at least. If we can participate in the League Phase of the Champions League or Europa League, that will help us to fund improvements at the club and maybe begin bridging the financial gap between ourselves and the more established Czech clubs. Beyond that, I'm keen to build up our academy system so that we have our own players coming through, rather than relying on poaching the drop outs of the Slavia, Sparta and FK Viktoria academy systems. 

Our 2-2 draw at home to Slavia brought home the 24/25 league title, but our Vršovice neighbours would exact revenge on us in the MOL Cup final a couple of weeks later. While losing in the cup didn't detract too much from our remarkable league season, the defeat to Slavia did continue a worrying trend. Despite winning the league comfortably, Slavia got the better of us in the head-to-head encounters, as our tactical approach seemed quite ineffective against them. If they could sort out their results against the rest of the league, they'd pose us a real threat next season. 

Last season's champions Sparta Praha finished well off the pace in third place, in a season that seen them draw a remarkable twelve games in thirty five outings. 

The move to a 4-3-3 system obviously paid off, and I feel as though the players excelled in this shape. Plans are already afoot to try and improve the team next season, but we'll be sticking by our financial model and avoiding speculating too much on any potential future success. We're a club with a relatively small fanbase, playing in a division with modest financial rewards, and with a desperate need to invest in the club's infrastructure. If we want to become one of the established clubs in the division, we have to put the building blocks in place for sustained success. 

Winning the title was an exceptional achievement, but it opened up a different kind of pressure that the club was not used to experiencing. We could no longer be counted among the clubs who simply make up the numbers in the Czech top flight, and were in fact “the team to beat” in the coming season. This would mean facing more cautious tactical approaches that could prove trickier to break down on a regular basis. On top of this, improving the squad on our budget was virtually impossible. We had pretty much hit the ceiling for the quality of player that we could attract and would be relying on the same faces to defend the title next season, as well as competing for the very first time in the UEFA Champions League. 

Our frustrations in the market were perhaps off-set somewhat by the development of the young players we had acquired in previous windows; many of whom would be turning out for their countries in the u-21 European Championships.

When the football itself got going, there were no signs of stagnation in the results and performances. It was a reassuring beginning to our title defence that certainly improved my confidence in the group. With no European qualifiers to navigate, we could focus solely on getting points on the board and laying down the gauntlet to our challengers. 

Six wins in six league games is as impressive as it gets, but I'm aware that we haven't faced any of the top sides yet, and that things will get trickier when the midweek European games roll around. 

Speaking of which…

Despite the frustrating summer transfer window, the team have continued their positive progress since winning the title last season by putting themselves well in contention for back-to-back titles. Progression in the cup, along with a respectable first ever UEFA Champions League campaign, has us looking forward to a very exciting new year. 

Domestically, we've been very solid, building a small lead over Slavia Praha, who have seemingly got themselves together after a couple of disappointing years. Sparta look to have fallen away early, meaning their 2026 will probably be about which European competition they'll be playing in next season. 

Europe has been the most exciting part of the campaign so far, with some impressive results under our belt, and respectable defeats. The opening game against PSG was one of those games where I felt we'd probably get hit for five or six, but we stuck together and made the Parisians work for it. We were very unlucky in Marseille, and Ajax needed a stoppage time winner to beat us in Amsterdam. A 4-2 win over Olympiacos, a 2-2 draw in Brugge, and an incredible 3-2 win at home to Aston Villa has us occupying a playoff position at present, but with our final two games against Roma (away) and Inter Milan (home), I think it's probably asking too much for us to qualify from the League Phase. 

We've reached the winter break in Czech football, meaning we won't play another domestic game until February. That means we'll be short of match practice for our final games of the Champions League League Phase, but it also allows us to reassess the transfer market and look to the future. There are around four or five players that I expect to move on either in January or in the summer, so allowing for a couple of youth players to break into the first-team squad, I'd say we need at least three quality additions from the market. My scouts have been busy compiling reports for me to assess in the next month or so, so I'll get around to that now the football is out of the way for another month. We've got £5m in the budget, so we should be able to afford most players in the domestic market, but I'm willing to look further afield if good value is to be found.