SK Slavia Praha
Also written as Slavia Prague, Slavia Praha.
This is the Czech club, full name Sportovní klub Slavia Praha, based in the Vršovice district of Prague. It should not be confused with PFC Slavia Sofia, the Bulgarian club of the same generic "Slavia" name that plays in the First Professional Football League in Bulgaria; the two are unrelated organisations in different countries. "Slavia" was a common name adopted by Slavic sporting and gymnastic societies across Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century, which is why several clubs share it.
The club
SK Slavia Praha was founded on 2 November 1892, originally as a literary and cycling society before it took up football in 1896, which makes it one of the oldest football clubs on the European continent. The club plays at the Fortuna Arena, previously known as the Eden Arena and, before that, Stadion Eden, with a capacity of 19,370. Slavia have historically played in red and white, and their traditional badge carries a five-pointed red star, reflecting the club's Slavic-society origins.
The head coach is the Czech Jindřich Trpišovský, who was appointed in December 2017 and has been in the post ever since, making him one of the longest-serving managers in Czech top-flight football. Details of any assistant-coaching changes were not established from the sources read here.
Recent seasons
Slavia finished second in 2022/23 with 78 points and second again in 2023/24 with 72 points, both times behind their Prague rivals Sparta Praha. In 2024/25 Slavia won the title with 90 points from 35 matches, 29 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats, scoring 77 goals and conceding 18, finishing well clear of Viktoria Plzeň on 74 and Baník Ostrava on 71, with Sparta Praha down in fourth on 63. In 2025/26 Slavia retained the title with 71 points from 30 matches, 21 wins, 8 draws and 1 defeat, 63 goals scored and 23 conceded, finishing ahead of Sparta Praha's 63 points. That season also included a Czech Cup run to the quarter-finals and, in the league, a 9 May 2026 home match against Sparta Praha that was abandoned in the 97th minute after a pitch invasion with Slavia leading 3-2.
Honours and landmarks
Slavia have won the Czechoslovak or Czech league title on the order of twenty times in total: fourteen Czechoslovak championships between 1912/13 and 1946/47, and since Czech independence in 1993 nine Czech First League titles, most recently in 2024/25 and 2025/26. In the cup they won the Czechoslovak cup five times between 1934/35 and 1973/74 and the Czech Cup seven times in the modern era, most recently in 2022/23, with two domestic doubles, in 2019 and 2021. Before the Second World War Slavia won the Mitropa Cup in 1938, a competition for Central European club champions that predated the European Cup.
In continental competition proper, Slavia's best run remains the semi-final of the 1995/96 UEFA Cup, in which they beat Sturm Graz, SC Freiburg, FC Lugano, RC Lens (1-0 after extra time in the away leg) and AS Roma on away goals after a 3-3 aggregate in the quarter-final, before losing to Girondins de Bordeaux. They have since reached the UEFA Champions League group stage or league phase on multiple occasions, including 2007/08, 2019/20 and 2025/26, and the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League in both 2018/19 and 2020/21. Slavia have not reached a European final; where sources describe them contesting UEFA Cup or Cup Winners' Cup finals, that was not established from the sources read here and should not be assumed.
Notable scorelines
Slavia's heaviest recorded European defeat is 7-0 away to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in the 2007/08 Champions League group stage on 23 October 2007, still Arsenal's biggest ever Champions League win. In the 2018/19 Europa League quarter-final Slavia lost 5-3 on aggregate to Chelsea, drawing 1-0 in Prague and losing 4-3 in London, and in the 2020/21 quarter-final they lost 5-1 on aggregate to Arsenal, drawing 1-1 at the Emirates before losing 4-0 at home. Among their bigger wins, Slavia beat Gibraltar's St Joseph's 11-0 on aggregate in the 2022/23 Europa Conference League (7-0 at home, 4-0 away) and beat Cork City 6-0 in a 1994/95 UEFA Cup preliminary tie. In the 2023/24 Europa League they went out to AC Milan in the round of sixteen, losing 7-3 on aggregate.
European record
Slavia's first European campaign was in the 1974/75 European Cup Winners' Cup. The high point remains 1995/96, when they went all the way to the UEFA Cup semi-finals as described above. In 2007/08 they reached the Champions League group stage for the first time, finishing bottom of a group containing Arsenal, Sevilla and Steaua București, with the 7-0 defeat at Arsenal the low point. They reached the group stage again in 2019/20, finishing bottom of a group with Internazionale, Borussia Dortmund and Barcelona on two points. The Europa League quarter-final runs of 2018/19 (lost to Chelsea) and 2020/21 (lost to Arsenal) were their best showings in that competition, and in 2023/24 they topped a Europa League group before losing to AC Milan in the round of sixteen.
In 2024/25 Slavia reached the Champions League play-off round before losing to Lille, then dropped into the Europa League league phase, where they finished 30th of 36 with one win, two draws and five defeats. In 2025/26 they qualified for the Champions League league phase directly as Czech champions but finished 34th of 36 with no wins, three draws and five defeats, five goals scored and nineteen conceded. Coming into their 2026/27 opener they were winless in fifteen consecutive European matches and had not won a Champions League match since September 2007, against Steaua București.
Quotes
Ahead of the Lens match, Jindřich Trpišovský was reported to have studied Lens's recent matches, including their defeat at Strasbourg, in order to find tactical weaknesses, but no directly quoted remarks from him or from any Slavia player were confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Jindřich Trpišovský remains head coach. Domestically Slavia were top of the Czech First League after seven matches with 17 points from five wins and two draws, having beaten Zbrojovka Brno 4-0 at home in their most recent league fixture, with only five goals conceded across the campaign. David Zima (concussion), Lukáš Provod (ankle) and Tomáš Holeš were out through injury, while David Jurásek and Emmanuel Ayaosi were pushing for recalls after scoring as substitutes, and Mojmír Chytil and Tomáš Chorý were competing for the central striker role.
Slavia opened their Champions League league phase at home to Lens at the Fortuna Arena on 10 September 2026. The two clubs had met once before, in the third round of the 1995/96 UEFA Cup, when Slavia progressed on a goalless draw in Prague and a 1-0 win in Lens; this was Lens's only previous fixture against Czech opposition. Slavia's wider Champions League league-phase schedule for 2026/27 also includes Sabah away, Fenerbahçe away, Arsenal at home, Villarreal at home, Bayern Munich away, Porto away and Aston Villa at home. The outcome of the Lens fixture itself was not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK_Slavia_Prague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK_Slavia_Prague_in_European_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_SK_Slavia_Prague_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%9325_SK_Slavia_Prague_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_SK_Slavia_Prague_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%9325_Czech_First_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Slavia_Prague_records_and_statistics https://en.slavia.cz/clanek.asp?id=190 https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/slavia-prague/champions-league/preview/slavia-prague-vs-lens-prediction-team-news-lineups_604704.html https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/02a9-218375432a2e-1b4d397e430b-1000--champions-league-matchday-1-slavia-praha-vs-lens-facts/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2049569--slavia-praha-vs-lens/ https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/228794 https://www.arsenal.com/news/recalling-2007s-7-0-record-win-over-slavia-prague https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/clubs/52498--slavia-praha/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.