FC Hradec Kralove
Also written as Hradec Kralove.
The club
FC Hradec Kralove were founded in 1905 and play in the east Bohemian city of the same name. Their ground is the Malsovicka arena, capacity 9,300, a rebuild completed in the 2020s on the site of the old Malsovice stadium. The nickname is Votroci, which translates roughly as the Rascals. The manager is David Horejs, appointed on 28 February 2024.
Recent seasons
Hradec are a yo-yo club by modern Czech standards and the last five years have been the best stretch in their post-communist history. Positions and points for 2021/22 through 2024/25 were not confirmed in detail from the sources read here and are not stated.
The 2025/26 season is the one that matters. Hradec finished fourth of sixteen in the Czech First League, their best modern placing, and took the second Europa League place behind Slavia Prague, Sparta Prague and Viktoria Plzen. Slavia won the title with 80 points; Slavia and Sparta went to the Champions League, Plzen and Hradec to the Europa League, and Jablonec to the Conference League. Hradec's own points total was not confirmed from the sources read here. Their manager has described the swing plainly enough: a club three points off relegation not long ago is now playing European ties.
Honours and landmarks
One Czechoslovak First League title, in 1959/60. One Czech Cup, in 1994/95. That is the whole cabinet, and both entries are old, which is why the current run is treated locally as significant rather than routine.
Notable scorelines
The 1959/60 championship put Hradec into the 1960/61 European Cup, where they got through the early rounds and were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Barcelona, who reached the final that season. The individual leg scores of that tie were not confirmed from the sources read here. The 1994/95 Czech Cup took them into the Cup Winners' Cup, where they went out in the round of 16 to Dynamo Moscow; again, the scorelines were not confirmed. Record win and record defeat were not established.
European record
Thin, and separated by long gaps. A European Cup quarter-final in 1960/61 off the back of the league title, a Cup Winners' Cup round of 16 in the mid-1990s, and then nothing of note until now. That makes the 2026/27 campaign the club's most substantial European involvement in three decades.
The route this summer: Hradec entered the Europa League at the second qualifying round and beat Tromso of Norway, winning 1-0 away on 23 July 2026 and 3-1 at home on 30 July 2026. Tromso dropped into the Conference League and promptly won 5-0 at CFR Cluj, which is a reasonable indication that the side Hradec eliminated was not a poor one.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.
The only quotes located were Turkish-language renderings, in Fanatik and Milliyet, of remarks David Horejs made in Czech at a pre-match press conference at the Malsovicka arena on 5 August 2026. Those are translations of a translation and cannot be reproduced as verbatim. A Tiscali article of 31 July 2026 discusses a Horejs interview with iDNES in which he called the Hradec job a good fit for both sides, but paraphrases rather than quotes him, so nothing from it is reproduced here either.
Right now (2026/27)
David Horejs remains in charge. No summer transfer detail was confirmed from the sources read here and none is invented. The domestic start has been solid: a 2-1 home win over Pardubice on 26 July 2026 and a 0-0 draw at Bohemians 1905 on 2 August 2026, leaving Hradec sixth with four points from two matches.
The European tie they are in now is the Europa League third qualifying round against Besiktas, and the first leg went badly in the narrowest way. Hradec lost 1-0 at home on 6 August 2026 in front of a full house at the Malsovicka arena, beaten by a Semih Kilicsoy header in the 80th minute from a Kassoum Ouattara cross. Kilicsoy was a substitute. The second leg is at the Tupras Stadyumu in Istanbul on 13 August 2026, and the loser of the tie drops into the Conference League play-off round rather than out of Europe altogether.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Hradec_Kr%C3%A1lov%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Czech_First_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%C5%A1ovick%C3%A1_ar%C3%A9na https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/401902936/besiktas-fc-hradec-kralove https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/match/2049125--hradec-kralove-vs-besiktas/ https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/match/2049137--besiktas-vs-hradec-kralove/ https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/hradec-kralove/preview/hradec-kralove-vs-besiktas-prediction-team-news-lineups_602386.html https://www.tiscali.cz/kouc-hradce-horejs-popsal-tezke-okamziky-nejprve-tri-body-od-sestupu-ted-bitvy-v-evrope-719251
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.