2024/25 mid-season review: FK Teplice
At the beginning of September, Zdenko Frťala was taking questions about whether he’s pondering a resignation. His team had just suffered six losses from the opening seven rounds (soon it was seven from eight) and the likeable coach himself publicly wondered whether they are putting the club’s improving reputation at risk by some of the performances and, especially, the results that saw Teplice plummet all the way down to 15th. Then it clicked. Three months after their seventh loss of the season, their autumn total stopped at 10, with Teplice picking up as many points as Sparta (15) in the last 10 rounds. They are back as everyone’s darlings.
The outlook
The best thing about Teplice robbing Sparta, Plzeň and Slavia towards the end of 2024 arguably isn’t the unexpected 5 extra points in the bank, but what’s left ahead. As opposed to Pardubice, who are sitting just below them, Teplice are facing the lightest remaining schedule of all, and it doesn’t feel like a particularly close call. With 5/6s of the Top 3 tests out of the way (Sparta and Slavia fully dealt with, Plzeň at Štruncovy sady, too), and a complete Liberec matchup in the dust, too — half-jokingly dubbed as the Sudeten derby by fans from both camps — FKT are in a unique position. After a tough go in the first four spring rounds (Karviná, Boleslav, Ostrava away; Plzeň at home), their schedule gets incredibly soft down the stretch (Pardubice, Slovácko, Jablonec, Hradec at home; Dukla, Bohemians, Budějovice away), so another rapid climb up the table after some initial stumbles could be in the cards, potentially resulting in a repeat of the middle group placement — still as likely a prospect as it was in summer.
The most important figure on the updated forecast below? The threat of relegation now only being 2% serious. The drop from the original 13% is more down to the bottom three tripping up than Teplice punching up, but it’s important to remember this is now a second straight year when FKT are basically safe at Christmas (they were just 1% more likely to go down last year), after entering 2022/23 as the overwhelming favourites to drop (68%).
Zdenko Frťala has done a marvelous job all considering.
The big question
Can Teplice cut out the glaring errors at the back, their only genuine downfall?
Teplice have a 2-2-5 away record despite recording the 5th best xGA and boasting the 4th best shot share (47,7% of attempts were theirs) on the road. In all, they have prevailed in just 31% of their matchups, even though their average win probability based on the quality and quantity of chances across all 19 rounds — six of which were played against the Top 4, remember — is 37%; significantly higher than that of Jablonec (33%) or Olomouc (28%). Their underperformance in terms of expected points is second most pronounced (minus-5.17 points), only lagging behind Liberec. Sort the league standings by expected points, and both Northern rivals sit comfortably in the Top 10, with Teplice just a point back off 6th Boleslav.
Once more, the Czech elite is being harsh on the Sudetenland.
Why is this the case for Teplice? Sometimes, the primary explanation is complicated — and yes, you could opt for a complicated one in this case, too, by mentioning Teplice’s PDO (combination of shooting percentage and save percentage) ranking the second worst behind the hopeless Dynamo. But there’s no need to galaxy-brain this: not one side fucks up as much as Teplice. Quite simply, when you ship 14 goals through your fault and your fault only, why continue to look for roots of grave underperformance?
Per my notes, only Karviná, Dukla and Dynamo have already gone into the double digits with the amount of goals conceded through sheer negligence. In terms of % of all goals conceded, though, they don’t come close to Teplice’s hurting. In a hypothetical world where goals are, at worst, preceded by minor mistakes, Teplice own a joint-7th best defence with Liberec, conceding 17 times — just 1-3 goals more than Jablonec, Ostrava or Sparta.
In reality, only the double-digit trio listed above conceded more.
With at least three culprits responsible for 6 of those goal-preceding errors far from the starting XI (Němeček, Tsykalo, Havel) and one more currently an outside bet, taking a further pair of errors with him (Mareček), there might be brighter days ahead. Teplice generally play it safe at the back, so it’s kind of weird to see them in the company of one team who doesn’t (Karviná) and two legitimately awful ones (Dukla, Budějovice). But in terms of percentages, the second most hurt side by these mistakes is actually Plzeň (6 out of 15 goals conceded!), a similar case of unsustainable misery.
The wild card
More sweet juice squeezed from dangerous attacking set pieces
There’s one more peculiar thing Teplice have had in common with Plzeň: their fan bases complain a lot about the efficiency of their attacking set pieces. While Viktoria fans are mostly in the right, watching their boys bleeding dangerous counters due to some terrible rest defence and seeing them muster a shot attempt following just one quarter of all corner kicks (2nd worst rate), Teplice are more unlucky than anything. While 3 goals scored following corners are nothing spectacular, it could’ve easily been better, with ‘Skláři’ finishing off 36.6% of their corner kicks (4th best rate) and producing 1,9 shots off corner deliveries per game (also 4th best rate).
The dead ball specialists are indeed not to be blamed. All of Kričfaluši (3), Mareček (5), Bílek (6) and Harušťák (8) have contributed a fair deal to Teplice creating the most wasted chances following all kinds of set pieces. It’s not even close, in fact; FKT generate 1.37 looks of false promise per 90 from corners, free kicks or throw-ins, whereas the second-best Bohemians are already down to 1.11. From experience and due to the respective volumes, even those wasted opportunities (48) tell you more about how dangerous a team generally is than — largely random — goals scored (6).
It’s probably only a matter of time when a side with two of the best crossers around, Harušťák with his left and Bílek with his right, start getting more out of set pieces. Even as the 6 goals are already good for 6th in the league.
MVP race
Pole position: Michal Bílek — 548,4 pts — ranked 37th league-wide
Prominent chaser: Abdallah Gning — 520,5 pts — ranked 41st
It’s not merely dead ball situations, only one of which led to a goal contribution after all, that power Michal Bílek’s unlikely MVP case. In total, he’s helped to make six goals happen (which leads the team together with Daniel Trubač), seeing a further 17 good looks go uncelebrated (3rd). His 11 threatening open-play crosses leading to goals/chances are in the vicinity of Malick Diouf (12) or Lukáš Provod (10), to give you an idea. A dilligent, hard-working central midfielder or right wingback/midfielder, Bílek is also net positive in terms of caused and prevented danger at the back.
What’s perhaps more important: this is no fluke. With the considerable help of Ondřej Kričfaluši and his cunning half-space crosses/passes, or the alternating due of Švanda and Radosta, Teplice actually boast a Top 3 right channel. They are responsible for 65% of xG created down that side, not too far behind Sparta (68%) and far ahead of 5th Baník Ostrava (50%). Bílek et co. provide for a balanced clique; offering the 4th best offence (0.29 xGF per game) along with the 2nd best defence (0.15 xGA allowed per game).
This is very much an uncharted territory for Teplice, to be clear. In the four years of me doing this, the highest any of the three Teplice channels has ranked was 8th, when both the central and the right channel landed that high midway through 2022/23. At the end of last season, Teplice owned the 12th most balanced right-hand side per xG share (and 14th at Christmas).
While both Bílek and Kričfaluši (4th on team, 60th league-wide) are in with a shout for the end-of-season MVP honours, the real wild cards are Trubač — leader in team of the week shortlist appearances (5) — and Abdallah Gning. The latter has got suitors from abroad per my information, but if he sticks around and remains healthy, he’s probably a favourite to claim the title. Through his 5 goals, four of them vital, he’s already added more than 5 expected points to the bank per CSfotbal’s model, and his 5.9 average Deník Sport mark speaks to a high standard he’s maintained, only twice dropping below 6. The Teplice normal, meanwhile, stands at an average mark of 5.0.
Bold prediction temperature check
Prediction: Mićević will add to his international call-up collection
Status: Very unlikely to come through
I backed up this five-flame bold prediction by Mićević’s existing international pedigree, but the former U-21 international and a random senior NT call-up as recently as in 2021 doesn’t feel especially close now.
Given the departure of Chaloupek and the serious injury to Knapík, I expected Mićević to be the single most important defender, carrying Teplice through a difficult time; instead he sunk with the rest of the team, more or less causing three conceded goals inside the first 7 rounds, getting bypassed for 10 more wasted chances while preventing danger just 4 times.
Mićević did improve with Knapík by his side, but only marginally, and he’s now gone from the team for good. To be fair, Mićević had battled injuries for much of the autumn, but this bold prediction always hinged on Teplice continuing their progressing into the upper half of the table, and that’s by far the main reason why this five-flamer already feels wasted. With them stuck at 13th, despite deserving much better per expected points (9th), there’s just no way Serbia national team’s scouts are noticing Mićević.
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