2022/23 team preview: SK Dynamo České Budějovice
Because I know a few people from Jihočeský kraj who’ve effectively jumped the ship because of him, I sincerely apologize for leading with a photo of Vladimír Koubek . But I mean… could you possibly not to? He’s a guy, after all, who’s only just celebrated his one-year anniversary as the owner of SK Dynamo České Budějovice after demonstrating a true meaning of the idiom “to leave no stone unturned”.
If you just got dropped to Earth from the sky and were told Dynamo finished 7th, 13th and 10th in three seasons following their promotion back to the top flight, with the coach responsible for all those campaigns being up for an extension after the last one, you’d probably expect him to at least get an offer.
David Horejš didn’t get one because the owner felt like he’s underachieved. Not like the coach wanted one, but it’s about the principle. About not thanking him for the 11 years of coaching and some 23 years of service. Or the fact this latest move by Vladimír Koubek surprised absolutely no one. It was on-brand.
The timeline goes roughly as follows:
- May 2021: Koubek buys up 100% of Dynamo shares, praises general manager Martin Vozábal and promises to help him out with running the club
- August 2021: Koubek helps out Vozábal to the point he’s relieved of his duties
- November 2021: The club’s academy has a new chief in Aleš Křeček
- February 2022: Sporting manager Tomáš Sivok leaves club, a public fight ensues
- February 2022: The club’s academy has a new chief in Stanislav Rožboud
- May 2022: Horejš gets sacked with immediate effect
Somewhere in between, Koubek surrounds himself with people of shady background who mostly won’t admit they work for the club in the first place and threaten with lawsuits once they get called out in any public way, has his academy coaches go for months without pay and has to work hard to convince Martin Kuba, governor of South Bohemia, to not stop financing the Dynamo youth because of it. It’s a mess of proportions impossible to fully capture.
Just to give you a rough idea: the word on the streets of České Budějovice is that Vladimír Koubek was chosen by the past owners over two capable local businessmen — Vlastislav Bříza of Koh-i-noor and Milan Teplý of Madeta — just to simply secure a legacy. The previous ownership knew Koubek all too well, having installed him in charge of their firms before, and was sure he wouldn’t take the club further and make them look “worse” as owners.
That’s how football is done here — in a cynical, selfish, destructive way— next door to an ice-hockey club (finally) allowed to thrive under the transparent, professional ownership of former NHL stars hailing from the region.
Now, how do you go about your business amid all this? We’ve likely learnt this spring — when Dynamo managed to win a grand total of two games with this shitshow happening in the background — that off-field issues cannot be underestimated. On the other hand, with Horejš gone, about the last member of the original Vozábal clique has departed, so maybe there are no issues?
Looking back on 2021/22
What went (particularly) right
Horejš’s Dynamo were masters of a turnaround. Their comeback triumph over Slovácko went down as an instant classic, but it wasn’t just that — per Transfermarkt, České Budějovice have accumulated a total of 21 deficits over the course of the whole season, turning them into a league-leading 19 points. Their stadium became a proper stronghold, too, with 30 out of 45 possible points staying at home — a regular season record only bettered by Top 4. Neither of these hallmarks was true for 2020/21 Dynamo, so progress…!
What went (especially) wrong
Unless not really. Dynamo were still way too easy to peg back, something very much manifesting in their overwhelming inability to win points on the road. České Budějovice actually became the first side since Příbram of 2013/14 to not celebrate a single away victory, settling for a mere six draws. Some of it was bad luck — two of their five best xG performances took place way outside Jihočeský kraj (Liberec and Karviná) — but most of it was sheer ineptitude. Dynamo got their penalty area penetrated 16,1 times from open play per away game; some kind of hospitality that only got outdone by relegated Karviná.
Most valuable player
who I consider to be the greatest 2021/22 contributor of all players still on board
I’ve already raved about the new-found, South Bohemia-based Andrea Pirlo halfway through the season, and he had little to no competition in this space, as well, courtesy of the departures of Fortune Bassey, Matěj Valenta, Mick van Buren or Vojtěch Vorel. Take away Jakub Hora, too, and you’re robbing Dynamo of their single biggest difference-maker currently on board.
However staggering the re-invention of a former goalscoring winger is, there’s no need for such an asterisk when talking him up. Hora has been a great deep-lying playmaker in the mould of Marek Matějovský fullstop; mentioning that he used to fill a very different role is just an unnecessary extra at this point.
Of 48 regularly starting attacking midfielders, Matějovský gained the most meters via passing, progressing the ball 282,56 meters per 90 mins — Hora, meanwhile, sat 3rd with 238,12. Similarly, Matějovský’s 1,08 accurate through passes per 90 ranked 2nd — Hora breathes down his neck with 0,95 (3rd). No one fed the inside/outside channel in a penetrative way more often than Matějovský, of course (2,20 times a game), but only one more attacking midfielder beat Hora (1,19 times). If Matějovský is in a class of his own as a distributing maestro, Hora falls in the tier just below him. No caveats.
Chip on the shoulder
who’s got something to particularly prove — either to himself, fans or the coach
No Bassey and greater inclination towards possession-based football has already done him some good, with four of his five goals coming in the spring, but now is the real showtime for Michal Škoda after Dynamo waved goodbye to eighteen more points in the form of Van Buren and Ondřej Mihálik this off-season. The 34-year-old veteran should have a platform to act as the second striker to Tomáš Zajíc who’s got a fantastic nose for poaching in the box — the sort of partner Mihálik wasn’t (he looked to play a bit too much like Škoda).
Last summer’s arrival took a nosedive in some of the most important creative metrics — almost getting his 0,89 deep completed passes per 90 mins slashed in half (to 0,48) and dropping from an elite 0,15 expected assists to a measly 0,04 — but I’d be surprised if he continued as such in this fresh environment.
Besides, while he’s no match for his older brother Milan in this respect, Michal Škoda had also deserved better per my luck index, especially for hitting the woodwork twice. On the flipside, he himself should’ve done better, too, having put nearly half of his own high-danger shots off target altogether (5/11).
Inside the club’s off-season
with much thanks to @LukMoji1 and Lukáš for guiding me through the motions of Dynamo’s pre-season
Squad turnover
As of today, only three FORTUNA:LIGA clubs have retained less than 60% of minutes played last term, and SK Dynamo České Budějovice are one of them. Crucially, they are rebuilding pretty much their entire offence — currently working with just 20 goals scored in the Czech top flight last season, seeing all their reinforcements come over from Slovakia (Jakub Grič, Jakub Švec), Poland (Tomáš Zajíc) or the Czech stands (Roman Potočný). A bit of a risk.
Losing five of your 12 most used players is bad enough, but it’s especially worrying when those five at the same time cover your starting goalkeeper (2nd busiest), top scorer (12th busiest) and two best set-up guys (4th and 5th busiest). These are some of the most vital roles to fill — suddenly vacated.
Biggest upgrade
Not much went right for Tomáš Zajíc in Poland, apparently, but I fully expect him to rebuild his reputation at Dynamo where they’ll lean on him heavily — much like they did on Ondřej Mihálik previously. (I don’t want to be rude, and I don’t think he’s useless, but it’s nonetheless hard to think of many F:Liga clubs that would happily gift-wrap Mihálik 2000+ mins like Dynamo did.)
You see, both Zajíc and Mihálik act on guts a lot. They are instinctive forwards. It’s just that one of them mostly doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing while the other makes for one of the smartest strikers around. Mihálik posted decent to elite numbers as far as link-up play goes, yet it never felt like he truly fit into the side. It was about as awkward as his ball control, really. Mihálik was a capable connector of dots in a side that had a top notch deep-lying playmaker in Hora, a playmaking box-to-box midfielder in Valenta, a playmaking right winger in Van Buren and a creative centre forward in Škoda.
You can see how this equation doesn’t lead to a desired result, right?
Enter Zajíc, who’s always there to sweep up balls into the net from high-xG positions — incredibly posting shooting percentage of over 52% in all six of his senior years — and generally opens himself up on the shoulders of opposing defenders. He was at 0,32 inside-the-box xG per game in 2020/21; Mihálik was at 0,15 last term and put a shocking 80 % of high-danger shots off target.
Biggest downgrade
On the one hand, you can see how Patrik Hellebrand could use this opportunity to further his development and reinstate himself as the go-to ball distributor of this side. On the other hand, it’s hard to see him ever replacing the incisive nature of Matěj Valenta’s passing — his final third contribution.
With Hellebrand, it’s not about the pure passing ability; you know he’s got it. He’s a master of lovely diagonals and doesn’t land in the 97,5 percentile for accurate progressive passes among CDMs by any sort of an accident. But as far as through passes, smart passes and chance-creating actions go, Valenta is already a few miles ahead of him. And as far as xG+xA goes, it’s light years (80 vs 35 pct). He’s not as aesthetic a sight, but cuteness alone doesn’t cut it — and Hellebrand more and more appears to be an artist first, footballer second. His inherent softness, additionally, makes him a loser in most kinds of duels.
Valenta is coming over to Slavia with an unspectacular business card of 2 goals, 1 assist in over 2000 minutes of top flight action, and I’ve already seen way too many suggestions that he’s nothing special for it, no Slavia level.
What these numbers don’t capture, however, is how one contributes to A) ball recovery and B) breaking the lines (ability largely missing from a Stanciu-less Slavia roster in the spring) with Valenta frequently doing both in quick succession. He’s elite in winning loose ball duels and intercepting passes, he’s elite in gaining the danger zone (without necessarily making the final pass) — and he’s therefore, potentially, a counter-pressing cheat code in the making.
New kid on the block
To further set Hellebrand back, he’s now got an up-and-coming rival who has a serious chance at ousting him altogether. David Krch (b. 2003) had spent the spring on loan at neighbouring Táborsko in the 2nd tier, having already impressed @LukMoji1 in 2022 winter camp. He too is rather short and sees the pitch very well, flashing his appetite for an accurate long-range pass. As a U-19 international, he’s got considerable pedigree to call upon and he should be a part of the rising youth movement together with Ondřej Čoudek (b. 2004) and Daniel Hais (b. 2003), all eager to plug holes across the thin roster.
It will also be interesting to follow two other stories: one of a potential late bloomer Jakub Matoušek (b. 1998), a tall striker who used his autumn stint at Táborsko to then power Dynamo “B” towards a promotion to the 3rd tier; the other one of a former wonderkid Nicolas Penner (b. 2001) who’s put on some muscle over the off-season and seems to be ready to put a series of injuries and confidence blips firmly behind him to finally take the league by storm.
Looking ahead to 2022/23
Below is the team’s current depth chart with a maximum of 4 alternatives for one position. All depth charts are up to date as of July 14 and obviously subject to change since the transfer window is far from closed at the moment. Players highlighted in red are longterm absentees rather far from making a comeback, while players in italics are all-but-confirmed arrivals. Those likely to depart will be highlighted in the text below, as will some other depth options or changes occurring since July 14. To add a little flavour, I’ve intuitively rated various positions/areas of the pitch — goal, right flank, left flank, central defence, central midfield, forward positions (incl. attacking midfielders) — on a simple scale (creating five tiers), which is what the different shading (blue to red) represents.
Need left to be addressed
One can easily spot a couple.
I foolishly took it as a foregone conclusion that Dynamo would trigger the option to buy Ishaku Konda — as did Transfermarkt apparently — but I’m reliably told they didn’t (have money to do so), and so he’s more likely on his way to a different Czech club instead of returning to ČB and you can cross him out from the depth chart in your mind (or at least turn his name to italics).
That makes adding a centre half one need I didn’t really take into account at first; Martin Králik and Lukáš Havel are a solid starting duo for a mid-table club, but a 17-year-old with a 90-minute top flight experience and a 26-year-old career 2nd/3rd-tier CB aren’t an ideal cover by any stretch of imagination.
But there are still two positions that bother me even more, given that the current starters — rather than back-ups — are the real problem to solve.
For one, Dynamo have failed to sign a true Mick van Buren replacement, with Jakub Švec coming over 1) to replace Patrik Brandner’s type, 2) as a raw 21-year-old with potential to “make his way into a starting XI with time” per Jozef Weber’s own admission. Maybe it’s Penner jumping over him on the depth chart (likely perhaps), or perhaps it’s Matej Mršić or Potočný moving across to act in secondary roles, but none of these solutions inspires enough confidence in me. And Tomáš Zahradníček is still nowhere to be found.
Van Buren doesn’t look particularly great below, but he was a reference point of this side to a rather large extent, and getting over the 50-percentile hump on a mediocre team is no small feat — especially when it’s in unconnected categories such as high-danger shots, expected assists and high recoveries.
One position I’m outright shocked Dynamo haven’t targeted at all: left back. That’s despite having one of the possible covers effectively retire in Pavel Novák and their starter — now backed up by the primary RB back-up — looking as limited as he does. For context, Benjamin Čolić had an overall percentile of 71,1 among fullbacks; obviously powered just by his offence, but still powered by something and contributing to Dynamo owning 49,1% of all xG action occurring down the channel (10th biggest share). On the left, it was a mere 36,4% (14th) with Lukáš Skovajsa doing fine in terms of pushing (vertically) and shifting (horizontally) play but adding next to no other value:
Some random notes on the depth chart:
- To expand on my previous point and pick up on something you may have picked up on yourself already (as part of the Slavia preview): Dynamo owned the second most dangerous right-hand side per xGF generated per 90 mins from positional attacks. The average reads 0,27 xGF — rough equivalent of two very good chances per game — and Čolić had a massive hand in it. He was once again a top-tier fullback when it comes to passing the ball down the line and putting it to the attacking penalty area from open play on a regular basis (at least twice a game as one of only six FBs).
- Jonáš Vais has gotten plenty of opportunities in pre-season and, much like Nicolas Penner, could be a sneaky break-out candidate. At 22, it would be about time for the Plzeň academy graduate who had put in a couple — but only really a couple — interesting sub appearances last term already.
- I wouldn’t sleep on the potential battle developing in goal. Dávid Šípoš was brought over from Slovakia a year ago to gradually take over from Vojtěch Vorel but it’d be a stretch to suggest he’d accumulated much of leeway. Šípoš was decent — preventing over two goals across 7 league starts and showing promise distribution-wise — but Martin Janáček (b. 2000) is a South Bohemian native and, while not exactly busy on loan at Táborsko, he now certainly made things interesting with a clean sheet vs Augsburg.
Roster battle to follow
I’m still not sure how they’ve done it — finance-wise, ambition-wise — but Dynamo convincing Jakub Grič to come over and rival Patrik Čavoš for the mantle of the go-to number 6 of this side (or a spot on the right side of the double pivot, should Weber opt for that option) could be a coup of the summer. I’m not saying they couldn’t play together — they could — but after he was stripped of captaincy for 2021/22 and relegated to bench duty for much of the season in October, this is yet another blow to Čavoš’s standing in the club’s hierarchy, a year before his current contract expires per Transfermarkt.
Ultimately, Grič may be a Valenta replacement more than anything else, as he’s what his name translates to — a workhorse — who doesn’t shy away from any challenge, reads the game well, can pass and has a vast radius of action.
Season forecast
Rounds 19, 21 and 25… that’s when Dynamo reached the magical 30-point mark in each of the last three seasons since earning the promotion. It’s a sign of gradual decline, you could argue — one that’s now supposed to culminate in the same threshold not getting reached at all within the 30-game journey. Our model still gives them a 46% chance of getting there, but the exact expectation based on one hundred thousand simulations is 29,2 points.
After avoiding the relegation group by seven (2020) and six (2022) points in the two relevant years, České Budějovice are now saddled with an 80% chance to land right in the thick of it — and a substantial 21% chance of eventually going down, be it directly or via the tricky relegation play-offs.
Bold prediction
The track record: 0/1. Mršić didn’t get a single vote as Foreigner of the Year.
The prediction: All three opening Dynamo goals will be scored by debutants
The rationale: This arguably sounds easier to hit than it actually is. Dynamo have a few new faces upfront — most notably Potočný, Zajíc and Švec — but it’d be reasonable to expect them all debut in the season opener. This effectively means that České Budějovice either need to rout Pardubice (who will be severely weakened by both departures and injuries to Jeřábek and Kostka, so it could happen) or, perhaps less likely, save a debutant for later.
To be clear, for the purpose of this exercise, I mean a full starter by “debutant”, but it’s hard to see this work in my favour as any sub appearance effectively requires Dynamo’s goal drought to stretch longer if I am to succeed. For what it’s worth, I fully expect a Zajíc brace to give me some hope to begin with and then someone else to shatter it to pieces. It will be great fun!
If you made it here and enjoyed the article, please do consider supporting our work by donating a small amount of money at BuyMeACoffee page. Cheers!
