Glossary: ​​The 30th season of the league begins, alluring and rotting parts of our lives

The upcoming football league season will be the jubilee, the thirtieth Czech one. Thirtieth since the end of the history of the Federal League.

Football here logically copied the political history that split the federation into two branches and on January 1, 1993, two independent republics were created. In the middle of the competition year 1992/93, which was still played in the federal format and was won by Prague’s Sparta.

After all, she had great strength in those years, winning eight of the last 10 federal years. Only Vítkovice was better in the eighty-sixth and Slovan Bratislava in the ninety-second.

And Sparta won eight of the first ten years of the Czech league. Only Slavia “got into” it in 1996 and then again Slovan, this time from Liberec, in 2002.

After all, Slovan Liberec was one of the clubs that earned promotion to the elite after the division of the federation. The last federal season was played by 6 Slovak clubs – Slovan, Inter, Dunajská Streda, Prešov, Nitra and Trnava.

And so, for the purposes of compiling the sixteen participants of the first year of the first Czech league, they were replaced by half a dozen clubs from the second highest league. At that time, Cheb, Pilsen, Viktoria Žižkov, Liberec, Drnovice and Zlín reached the elite.

These clubs were supplemented by “old-timers”, i.e. Sparta, Slavia, Dukla, Sigma, Baník, Zbrojovka, Hradec Králové and Vítkovice with České Budějovice.

Bohemians and Jablonec played a tie for the last place in the new league. It was whistled by a certain Roman Berbr. And two years later, during the first major shake-up of the corruption issue, the “kangaroos” remembered that they had allegedly told their captain Rudolf Pavlík during the match that he wanted a bribe.

When, for example, we compile the series Thirty cases from the panopticon of sinful people of the football world, we can start with that. After all, there was no shortage of corruption scandals even afterwards. And not only about them.

Perhaps no one doubts that in the 1990s, in the days of wild capitalism, the hogwash became really coarse in football as well.

The imaginary “execution” performed by the referees on the football field was still quite funny in the context of the intermingling of the world of organized crime with Czech football in those years. Just as everything is described by Jaroslav Kmenta in the book Godfather Mrázek.

At least the role of a big white horse in all of this was played by the then vice-chairman of the football association and head of Drnovic football club Jan Gottvald. Radovan Krejčíř later owned the Drnovice club, and of course Příbram boss Jaroslav Starka knew all these gentlemen very intimately.

In 2002, the owner of the Brno club, Jaroslav Bubl, was shot in both legs somewhere in a cornfield. Other times people got lost. The head of the association, František Chvalovský, successfully survived the kidnapping. A few years later, however, things apparently turned out worse with the missing Miroslav Kříž, the league’s vice-president from the era of Ivan Hašek.

Unfortunately, the fate of Jan Sanytrník, the attacker and later secretary of Bohemians, was also written into the bloody stories. The police evaluated the gash in his abdominal cavity as a suicide. And it didn’t go well with the referee Prášil either.

Everyone had problems with the law in those years, even the owner of Sparta Petr Mach or the Brno boss Lubomír Hrstka found themselves in prison.

But – world, be amazed – in the background of all this, from today’s point of view, really great football was played. The league “weaned” all the fighters from the silver Euro 1996, the bronze tournament in Portugal 2004. Even the under-21 European champions from Switzerland 2002.

The fights in which Nedvěd, Šmicer, Poborský and others of their generation met at the beginning of their careers were really worth it.

Perhaps the most memorable match in the league’s history remains the derby from the spring of 1995, when manager Jozef Chovanec surprisingly appeared in the Spartan lineup in Eden. Due to an injury, a replacement had to be found for referee Maurer during the match… And at the very end, after Krištofík’s mistake, Pavel Nedvěd decided the derby and the entire season with a famous goal.

To some, it may already seem like football for the contemporaries. I confess that I have that scene from old Eden before my eyes perhaps more clearly than the things that happened the day before yesterday.

There are people who are completely untouched by football, of course. But for the rest of us, the league kind of adds color to our lives.

Out of the 29 years so far, I have experienced 28 of them as a journalist – and in such a time one experiences (and forgets) a lot.

I remember, for example, how in Liberec the home team ran into the second half by ten, because the eleventh player got stuck in the toilet. Coach Petržela could have gone crazy.

Or the matches in Benešov, where I saw Liberec’s Josef Obajdin score four times. Or in Blšany, where they had really good sausages, but also a team in which Petr Čech entered league football.

Or the duel at Bohemka, where the referee obviously confused the excluded players. Behind the scenes, apparently after a few beers, it was handled by the famous delegate Ladislav Vízek.

One cannot forget Ladislav Škorpil and his anecdotes such as “the fact that we played against eleven high-quality opponents, against the audience, against three referees and against several footballers in our team, who quite obviously cooperated with the opponent, the result 0:4 is still quite acceptable “.

I remember numerous debates with Teplice director František Hrdlička on the subject of a separate league, and I would be quite interested in what he would say to the current model… And in my league almanac, the long-time Olomouc director Jiří Kubíček would certainly not be missing football stories set up a business.

Ivan Horník was, of course, absolutely unique. The guy on whom it all exploded and took it in his own way for everyone else. At the same time, it is a storehouse of completely unique humor, which fortunately was captured by wiretapping and Čtvrtníček’s performance for future generations.

Ostrava will not forget the championship season at Bazaly overflowing with euphoria. At the magic of the Za Lužánkami stadium, where over 40,000 people came to see Slavia, again in Brno.

Each of us who are interested in football stores mosaics of its stories, heroes and unforgettable matches in our heads.

From every title celebration, save, promotion, from every point won, some emotion remains in us. And also from every exposed fraud we will lie to ourselves.

Roman Berbr degraded Czech football to the dark realm of (him) organized football crime. It would be naive to think that he only cared about the livelihood of some Slavoj Vyšehrad. And it would be naive to think that no one will try to manipulate another match after Berbro.

We can only hope that such a concentrated football power will not find itself in the hands of any individual, moreover, such a characterless one. And that we will be able to enjoy the Czech league in peace and confidence for at least the next 30 years. Although maybe I’m a little fan of myself…