2024/25 mid-season review: FK Jablonec
It has been a journey of great personal vindication for Luboš Kozel. He felt like he was harshly dealt with by Slovan Liberec, so he beat them in an historic derby fashion (5:0). He did it at the very stadium where his winning percentage kept dropping year-over-year to eventually land at 41.9%. Now he’s bouncing back to the tune of 52.6% with the next-door rivals. Is this all just a little bit too good to be true? The xG gods are resolutely telling us it is — seeing Jablonec closer to a borderline Top 10 side (which is, funnily enough, how our original summer forecast also saw them) rather than a borderline UEFA competition candidate — and they get rarely fooled over the course of the entire season. Can Jablonec level up?
The outlook
This season is, of course, not just about Kozel. The reason why Kuba’s model needed to do so much correcting isn’t because it’s a dumb construction, but because the model is based on Elo rating system weighing — above other things — past results, and Jablonec’s past results had been absolutely dreadful. They had been a staple of the relegation group under three different coaches, so a 49% prospect of a repeat seemed reasonable. They did boast 4 regular-season wins in 2021/22 and only 6 just this past season, so the projected total of 9 seemed optimistic if anything.
To be fair to the model, I had also underrated Jablonec’s summer transfer window — seeing the departures of Kratochvíl, Hübschman, Drchal or Náprstek as more consequential than the offsetting arrivals of Beran, Puškáč or Cedidla — but even without my “expert input” pushing Hradec or Liberec far ahead of the green-and-white, the original still wouldn’t completely bridge the 8-point gap in the respective projections. Jablonec had simply dug themselves a massive hole, and it’s up to them to not only keep this Top 5 pace up, but to prove this has always been the standard.
After all, going into 2022/23 — with just one awful Rada-led season weighing on the model’s mind — Jablonec were projected to earn 42.6 points inside 30. This is simply a return to those previous heights; nothing unheard of.
As of now, Jablonec have masterfully turned a 12% chance of forming the Top 6 beyond the regular season into an 80% chance, and it could very soon approach 100% seeing Jablonec’s soft restart — it’s entirely plausible that by the time the planned Liberec vendetta comes for them, FKJ will have dispatched Bohemians, Slovácko and Karviná at home, Budějovice away, sitting very comfortably as part of a separated Top 5. It’s all lined up.
The big question
Can they avoid The Great Spring Reckoning with xG gods that typically follows?
Every Christmas, there is this one team sitting all too comfortably close to the top, blissfully unaware the sweet fairytale will not last. Last year, it was the 5th Sigma Olomouc, pacing for 47 regular-season points when the xP table had them at a much more modest 40 (9th). They ended up with 37. Halfway through 22/23, Plzeň had accumulated 10 extra points compared to what would’ve been expected of them, jumping ahead of both Prague “S” — only to lag behind them by 9 and 11 points respectively at the regular season’s end. In 20/21, it was Sigma once more, 4th at Christmas when they were supposed to be 12th (on pace for 47 vs 37 pts). Sure enough, 39 it was.
The one great recent overachiever that didn’t torpedo their lucky case in the spring: Baník Ostrava of 21/22. Midway through that season, the Silesian side was better off by 8 points for the eventual 5th place — so pretty much the situation Jablonec now find themselves in — and the 5th spot also ended up being their place when all was said and done. It didn’t matter any great deal, since they were missing a whopping 13 points on Slovácko after the lopsided dealings in the championship group, but it is something.
The thing is, Ostrava’s point-per-game pace also dropped quite dramatically from 1.89 to a pedestrian 1.36 (even below their autumn expected pace of 1.47 that would’ve had them 8th), but that didn’t matter either — with Baník a full ten points up on the next-best team back at Christmas already.
So yeah, Jablonec are very much up against it. But a team whose four cases of overperformance fit inside the league’s Top 50 of over/under (simply an absolute value speaking to the largest swing either direction), while their 4 cases of grossest underperformance rank 73rd, 144th, 179th and 192nd… that team really should be willing to stomach at least some injustice, don’t you think? In those four cases where Jablonec struck gold, by the way, they were a combined minus-2.73 expected goals and good for 3.66 xP (average win probability of 22%) all told. Instead, they’ve got 12 pts, and that by itself makes the difference. It’s crazy how influential 4 rounds can be. Poor Dukla who feature twice as part of this quartet, missing a costly penalty.
In general, earning an extra 20% in terms of non-penalty goal share compared to what NPxG suggests is never a good sign for sustainability. Second most substantial overpeformance was Plzeň’s plus-11.7 per cent.
The wild card
Kozel (not) finding a way to fix the defence earlier than in his Liberec stint
It took Luboš Kozel nearly two full seasons at Liberec to finally form a defence that was able to hold its own against positional attacks led by the opponent. At the conclusion of 22/23, Slovan were still allowing the second most xGA from positional attacks in the league (1.05 per game), actually taking a step back from the chaotic 21/22 when they ranked 11th (0.85). Then last season, it finally clicked with just 0.61 xGA allowed per 90 minutes (3rd) along with the second least xGA allowed from counters. It came at a significant cost of sucking at set pieces, but you pretty much always win some, lose some with Kozel in charge. Jablonec of 24/25? Back to square one for the veteran of 12 top flight campaigns. Ignore the worst positional-attack xGA at home, because that’s the entire Top 4 talking, but the whole picture doesn’t offer a particularly improved sight. Jablonec are still bottom 3 with 0.91 xGA conceded per 90. Even while filtering (tougher) home stands out, their average away positional-attack xGA ranks 10th.
In spite all of this, and their own build-up not being anything special either, FKJ boast a plus-9 goal differential — third best behind Slavia and Plzeň!
Generally, despite Jakub Martinec and Nemanja Tekijaški garnering much praise across the autumn, this is an outfit saddled with a number of defensive issues. That starts with eleven goalscoring opportunities against born out of thoroughly avoidable turnovers; the ‘Martijaški’ tandem alone combines for 15 squandered passes leading to a shot within the next 30 seconds. That’s a lot — there is only one more “prolific” leading duo with 17 such passes and it’s employed by Dukla, which is never a fine comparison.
The fact their opponents didn’t capitalize on any of those 11 turnovers? Pure luck. Especially disturbing when you consider Jablonec have also taken advantage of 11 glaring errors at the other end; on 4 occasions even twice a game. Similarly, Jablonec’s set piece defending appears stellar with just two goals conceded, but you need to take in account they also survived 30 chances created for the league’s most advantageous conversion rate.
Something’s gotta give. Either it’s Kozel and his boys working out a bunch of persisting bugs, or it’s the Lady Luck settling the bill — potentially big time.
MVP race
Pole position: Nemanja Tekijaški — 751,4 pts — ranked 17th league-wide
Prominent chaser: Jakub Martinec — 510,8 pts — ranked 45th
Back to Nemanja Tekijaški and Jakub Martinec: it’s not like they would only be a part of the problem at Jablonec, obviously, though I do find only one of the MVP cases to be legit. Martinec remains to be the most vulnerable defender when breaking the ball out of his own half (7 glaring errors as part of build-up) and hasn’t actually done much crucial defending either, only preventing real danger from materializing 11 times (compared to his partner’s 27). His MVP point total is largely built up by clean sheets he’s helped to oversee (9), a trio of goals (only one vital, putting together just 0.74 expected points added), and the 9 TotW nominations he’s somehow accrued (joint-most with Slavia’s Diouf for a defensive-minded player).
Seeing his average Deník Sport mark (6.3) beat that of Tekijaški (6.2), I can’t help but feel Martinec is vastly overrated by many, and it’s worth pointing out that he’s a prominent chaser only eight MVP points ahead of both Jan Hanuš — 10 of his 19 performances fitting inside the league’s Top 100 per prevented goals — and the versatile Vakho — who’s actually been a more reliable defender at wingback, on top of standing behind 8 goals scored. There’s also Alexis Alégué, the renowned super sub, with his team-leading 12 goal contributions picked up across 901 minutes of action (only 10th most used outfield player) lurking not far behind in the background.
But none of this changes anything on Tekijaški most likely running away with the MVP honours. Freshly extended exactly six month before the contract’s expiry date, he’s not going anywhere now, and he’ll always rack up MVP points through the unique blend of game-breaking defence and some creativity complementing his aerial prowess. Considering he’s only bagged one goal and four TotW shortlist appearances, there’s definitely scope for improvement, whereas Martinec is arguably hitting his ceiling.
Bold prediction temperature check
Prediction: Kozel won’t see his team score a goal in both Liberec derbies
Status: Dead(est) in the water
Hahahaha, good one… next!
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