35 games without a win
©TM/IMAGO
When it comes to teams enjoying impressive runs of form this season, there are a number of famous clubs that come to mind. In Italy, Juventus have now gone 21 games since their last defeat in Serie A. That’s bested by only four clubs, with Bayer Leverkusen (22 games), Liverpool (26) and Galatasaray (27) all enjoying similar extended runs of good fortune as the season draws to a close. And in France, to no great surprise, Paris Saint-Germain have faced very little in the form of domestic competition, as Luis Enrique’s side enter the final matchday of the season looking to extend their unbeaten run to 31 games.
But what about the poor clubs at the other end of that scale? Most football fans could have probably guessed at which super clubs are dominating their respective leagues, but when it comes to the teams across Europe that have gone the longest since winning a game we suddenly find ourselves in the realm of the relatively unknown. If history is written by the victors, then the world of football has a habit of castigating and forgetting entirely about the clubs that are simply incapable of picking up points. And when it comes to unfortunate winless streaks in European football, no club can rival the misfortune of Czech side SK Dynamo Ceske Budejovice.
Sitting bottom of the Czech top-flight with just 11 points from 33 games, Dynamo are on the cusp of an unfortunate achievement: going an entire league campaign without winning a single match. Although the club were forced to accept relegation as early as April 26, when a 2-1 defeat to Mlada Boleslav doomed them to the second tier of Czech football, they’re still being haunted by an unwanted winless run. To date, the club haven’t won a league game since last season’s relegation play-off with Silon Taborsko in late June. And, as we can see in the table above, they’re unrivalled across Europe’s top 20 divisions for the number of games since their last win. So what’s gone so wrong for Dynamo this season?
How Dynamo went an entire season without winning a single game
In a season that will go down as one of the most calamitous in Czech football history, Dynamo’s winless season can be chalked up to a number of factors and in many ways the club have been the victims of a series of unfortunate events that often predicate relegation. “Dynamo only managed to stay in the league last season through the relegation play-off, and during the transfer window, the club significantly weakened its squad,” explains Transfermarkt data scout and Czech football analyst Antonín Šrajer. “So relegation was already expected before the season even began. However, very few people would have bet on them not winning a single match – the odds of that happening are incredibly low.”
According to Šrajer, the club’s collapse wasn’t down to one single issue, but rather a perfect storm of financial instability, poor leadership, and extreme squad instability. “The club has been facing financial problems for the past two seasons,” explains Šrajer. “After the first match of this season, a new owner took over and immediately dismissed the coaching duo of club legends and former players, [Jiri] Lerch and [Jiri] Kladrubský.” That decision marked the start of chaos. The new head coach, František Straka, ignored many of the players previously brought in, shuffled the deck repeatedly, and used a staggering 51 different players in competitive matches. Which is surely a record for the club. And from there the club’s problems spiralled out of control.
“The new owner failed to deliver the promised funds and instead sold off every marketable player left in the squad,” noted Šrajer. “Dynamo strengthened other league teams: the best in the first half of the season, Marcel Čermák, transferred to Dukla Prague, their direct rival in the relegation fight at the time. Other players moved to Karviná, Boleslav, Teplice, Jablonec, and Liberec. Of the 15 most-used players from the 2023/2024 season, only four are still at the club.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, the new manager also demoted Zdeněk Ondrášek – the biggest name in the squad – to the club’s B-team.
Then came another twist. The manner in which the disruptive new owners had taken over was deemed to be invalid, leading to the previous administration returning and quickly reinstating the aforementioned Lerch and Kladrubský in mid-January. However, despite a point earned in a 0-0 draw with Dukla Prague in their first game back after the winter break, Dynamo then lost their next eight league games. The damage had already been done and there was nothing that their club legends could do to salvage the season.
Fortunately for the club, fan resentment and anger over perceived injustices from referee calls throughout the season or the mishandling of the club from bad owners has given way to more humorous reactions to Dynamo’s horrid form on the pitch. “At the beginning and during the season, there was a lot of visible anger from the fans,” remembers Šrajer. “This peaked toward the end of the first half of the season, when supporters were handing out symbolic “death certificates” for Dynamo in the stands and even planned a ‘funeral march’ protest through the city.” The march never went ahead, optimistically cancelled when the club changed hands and the managerial change was made in January, but who knows what the fans will have in store at the end of the season.
“As it became increasingly clear that Dynamo would be relegated, the anger among fans turned into lethargy, resignation, and sadness,” notes Šrajer ahead of the club’s penultimate match of the season against Teplice. They then face Dukla Prague on the final day of the season, but this weekend’s clash will be the last chance for fans to watch their team at home before resigning themselves to the second division next season. “We are now witnessing Dynamo’s final games in the top division — and no one knows when the club will be able to recover and return to the top flight again,” admits Šrajer, with little optimism. A win in either of the two remaining games may seem pointless, but it may offer some much-needed joy to a fanbase that has been through hell and back. And, finally, allow the club to dispel the unfortunate title of being the club in Europe with the most games without a single win.
