Fans' guide to watching football in Slovakia

Slovakian football


Why go to Slovakia? The country

 

If I told you Slovakia was a pivotal centre of European football you'd think i was bonkers. And you'd be right.


If I told you a Slovakian club had once lifted a European trophy you would still think I had flipped. But on that one, you'd be wrong.

Yes, honours to Slovan Bratislava who in 1969 won the European Cup Winners Cup, beating Barcelona - yes, Barcelona - in the final. It was when Slovakia was the back part of Czechoslovakia and although their neighbours may be doing better on the international stage these days, Slovakians will proudly point out that it was one of their sides that has won a European trophy, and not the Czechs. So there.

 



The Slovakia capital of Bratislava

It was Slovan Bratislava and Spartak Trnava who were the main Slovak contenders in the Czechoslovakian league, their games still being among the most eagerly awaited in the calendar. Spartak even made the semi finals of the European Cup back inthe early 1970s. But since the country split in two - all very amicably - there have been new kids on the block.


Where once Slovan and Inter battled it out for bragging rights in Bratislava, it is the young upstarts Artmedia who are now top dogs and in the past few years they and MSK Zilina have dominated the domestic Superliga.


Artmedia Petržalka - to give them their full name, taken from the suburb of Bratislava they are based in - romped to the league title in 2007-8 and made it a double with the Slovak Cup, guaranteeing European Champions Leage football once more. 

One victory will stick in the mind of Slovaks and in the neck of one half of Glasgow - in qualifying in 2005 they hosted Celtic and walloped them 5-0, the Scots unable to turn this around in the second leg.


We are the champions: The home of Artmedia Bratislava.

Rangers fans couldn't gloat too much though - they met the side in the group stages that season and were held to two draws.

The dozen teams in the Superliga are well spread across the country. Occasionally gates in the Superliga can reach the 10,000 and the bigger sides regularly pull in 5,000 and more, although smaller clubs can struggle to raise gates of more than 1,000.

Unless your team is drawn out in Slovakia it's unlikely to feature on your 'must-do' of European football destinations. However, if you end up making a journey to the growingly popular weekend haunt of Bratislava, you could do worse than check out a game either there or a short journey away.


When's kick off? Season and match kick off times

 

The 12 teams in the Superliga play each other three times every season - that's  a total of 33 games. It means some teams play 16 at home, others 17.


The season begins in mid July and continues through to the first weekend in December when time is called for the winter break.

There's plenty of time for the players and fans to relunctantly do their Christmas shopping and hit the New Year sales before reporting back for duty - the first games of the next year are the first weekend in February. The games then come thick and fast through to the latter stages of May.

The standard kick off time is 5.30pm on Saturday but in practice games are moved around for TV requirements.

Many remain on Saturday, earlier or later, but Monday evening games are an occasional feature and there are frequent kick offs on Sunday at the rather unholy hour (or is it holy?) of 10.30am. In 2007-8 a significant number of Artmedia's games in particular kicked off at that time.

Out of our league: The 2009-10 clubs


Click here for a map of Slovakia with the 12 2009/010 teams plotted - well spread around.



Here are links to the 2009-10 Superliga teams - most in Slovakian, i'm afraid, but i'm sure you're sharp enough to suss out fixtures and times and stuff. And the league site - with a limited english version - is here: http://www.futbalsfz.sk/en/



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