2024/25 mid-season review: FK Dukla Praha
It’s kind of a luxury to be old and bad yet relatively safe from the prospect of direct relegation. That’s exactly the unique situation Dukla Praha find themselves in, and to their credit, they are using it to get younger and potentially more dynamic through signings of unknown foreigners. Will it work out to the point they improve on the vastly underwhelming current 30-game pace of 19 points? Maybe. It may not matter, but for Dukla the 2025/26 must be a pretty immediate concern; at this rate, with the solid expectation of FC Zlín returning, they will be favourites to follow Dynamo.
The outlook
The “relatively” inserted before “safe” is quite important; you see, it comes with an asterisk assuming that any top flight club headed into the relegation play-off is indeed rather safe. Not once has the top tier status been surrendered this way since the play-offs became a thing, but this season might have the makings of a memorable first. You may notice that Dukla’s chances of getting relegated have actually increased by 5% to almost a 50-50, despite České Budějovice being close to a sure thing themselves (96%). That’s because while the point projection only deals with the regular season, the relegation prospect takes into account the post season, too. And the model now views Dukla as a nailed-on 15th side (Pardubice are projected to earn 6 extra points) potentially bumping into a runner-up with genuine ambition. That latter part is what could very well save Dukla, unless Vrba’s rapidly strengthening Líšeň takes 2025 by storm.
Still, a 49% chance of going down for the projected second-worst team ahead of an already-buried one? That’s wild. It’s not a perfect method, obviously, but for argument’s sake: if you were to presume another team goes down via playoffs, summed up two highest percentages and expressed whatever goes beyond 100% as the prospect of losing a second side, the chances over the 3 years of doing this would be 14%, 16% and… 45%.
This is not insignificant.
Neither is the projected point total at the end of the regular season. Dukla managed the same 20 in 30 rounds in 2018/19, too, when they entered the post season 9 points back of Karviná, ultimately going down 10 points off. Imagine how Brno must be feeling, getting relegated with 33 points (and a regular season record of 8-7-15) after being given only a 5% chance midway through 2022/23. Dukla should be comfortable with minus 3 wins, 2 draws after 30 rounds — without having so much as a 1% chance of reaching the 30-point threshold inside the regular season like Zbrojovka did then (31).
Man, it really must feel great to have SK Dynamo České Budějovice.
The big question
Can they keep making the most of the precious little for much longer?
It’s outrageous how little has proven good enough for Dukla’s 12 points, especially when you compare it to Dynamo having 3 points to show for arguably more… shown. Consider that Dukla bagged points on 6 separate occasions, and in those games combined they were outshot 41:86 (two of their opponents produced 20+ attempts for 0 goals scored), outworked on the xG clock by over 2 goals expected, yet somehow good for a 8:3 score. When a defence sorting through nine (!) different centre back configurations still contributes to Dynamo owning 39.6% of all shots in their games, while your two partnerships (with one constant) are part of a team that only controls 37.3% of the shot flow… you may have a problem.
Taking exclusively shots on goal into account, only four goalkeepers have been asked by Dukla players to prevent at least one goal, with Mešanović et co. wildly misfiring. No matter. In total, opposing keepers faced shots of a combined 11.34 xGS value, conceding 15 times. By comparison, Dynamo asked more questions (12.34 xGS) and were denied far more often (7 goals). That is a difference between the unluckiest outfit and only 7th unluckiest.
This is, of course, a result of a spectacular total of gifted goals — seven. These are not goals preceded by just some mistakes, btw. These are pure fuck-ups — and they led to nearly a full half of all Dukla goal production.
Let that sink in.
Much like Michal Reichl sunk in embarrassment when conceding from a 0.01 xG shot intended to be a long pass. At one point, Dukla benefitted from opponents’ grave errors in four consecutive rounds! It’s not like all of those 7 goals were down to completely unforced errors (Dukla can apply pressure up high much like Rada’s Jablonec could), but a majority of them were — both Teplice and Pardubice easily shot themselves in the foot to hand over 3 more ‘soft’ points (for a total of 5) Dukla had no real claim for.
The wild card
A new — only second? — reliable chance and goal source
I don’t know what’s the root cause — could this be a generally lacking height (I don’t have exact data but Dukla do feel shorter than an average side?) or Jakub Hora’s disappearance from the starting line-up beyond Round 7 — but Dukla have generated shockingly little from corner kicks. It does indeed speak volumes about what a horrid autumn Sparta had just endured, as they stand tall as the only Dukla opponent getting scored on via corner kick. Over the whole autumn, the Juliska outfit produced a mere 11 dangerous corners; even Dynamo have produced 20 of them to date.
After extending the statistic to all set pieces like the magical throw-ins that beat Dynamo (and no one else) or free kicks, Dukla generate a measly 0.6 promising looks per game. That’s the worst rate by a fair amount (0.17).
Add the peculiar aversion to counter-attacking on top — Dukla have only embarked on 7 swift counters, producing 0.18 xGF from them per Wyscout — and it’s easy to see how Rada’s boys are failing to produce on their own.
You gotta diversify.
No wonder that once there were suddenly no freebies on offer, Dukla closed out the fall with just 5 goals scored in the last 8 rounds; their 10-game xGF average frighteningly comparable to that of Dynamo (0.7 x 0.64).
MVP race
Pole position: Daniel Kozma—375,3 pts — ranked 80th league-wide
Prominent chaser: Dominik Hašek — 318,9 pts — ranked 90th
I don’t know about you, but this ‘race’ is even less inspiring than the one currently ‘captivating’ South Bohemia. Daniel Kozma (on the right on the picture above) is a steady but largely unspectacular defensive specialist who’s propped up by two assists (one random) and leads the team with just three team of the week shortlist appearances. The wonderfully named Dominik Hašek is breathing down his neck even though the last few rounds derailed his autumn. He was at fault for just 1/15 goals conceded with him on the pitch inside the first 10 rounds; then he more or less caused 6/21 goals, as Dukla’s defence got progressively worse and his interventions unfocused. Matúš Hruška, still sitting 4th on the team’s MVP leaderboard, has written much the same story — preventing 1,23 goals in the first 7 rounds only to never climb above break-even in the following 12 rounds, allowing 10,67 goals above expected for a drastic change; at fault for four.
As you can also see above, Dukla’s defence is not a particular source of pride, but it’s no surprise the top of their MVP leaderboard is flooded by defensive-minded players, since the attacking-minded ones are never put in a position to succeed. As a result, attacking-minded players are only responsible for 36,3% of all MVP points generated by Dukla boys, the second lowest percentage behind FC Hradec Králové (who are extreme).
The talent is there, but take Christian Bačinský, a midfielder with some dose of flair deployed so freaking deep he’s actually contributed to more goals conceded (3) than chances created (1). The man responsible for the most passes completed in/to penalty area? Muris Mešanović (18), the most advanced player on a lot of afternoons. Unhealthy. Jakub Zeronik is second with 14, followed by Kozma with a mere 7. Dukla register the least deep completions (passes or crosses) per attack led (0,33) and crack the penalty area with the lowest success rate by far (35,4% compared to 41,4%). No wonder, since Zeronik or Štěpán Šebrle are normally tasked with dribbling deep from around the half-line, doing much of the action on their own.
Bold prediction temperature check
Prediction: N/A
Status: Would be dead in the water anyway
I didn’t write up a preview for Dukla due to my lacking knowledge (and the lacking supporters who would help me fill in the considerable gaps), but I still had a bold prediction in mind while coming up with all the others and it would have read something along the lines of D̶u̶k̶l̶a̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶n̶j̶o̶y̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶s̶c̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶ ̶g̶o̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶a̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶-̶s̶i̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶w̶-̶i̶n̶ Petr Rada will be fired either just before, or right after, passing his former Dukla manager Jaroslav Vejvoda for the 2nd place in the all-time table of seasoned coaches.
That happened 7 rounds ago, and the old man is still swearing at clouds…
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