AS Trencin

Martin Škrtel spent three seasons in Trenčín's academy pipeline before Zenit came calling. Stanislav Lobotka went the same route more recently, working through the same youth system on his way to Napoli, and between them the two mark out what the club has become under its current guise.

The club itself is younger than that reputation suggests. The present structure dates only to 1992, registered as TJ Ozeta Dukla Trenčín, though it inherited the identity of football clubs that had occupied the city continuously since 1904. It changed name twice more — to FK Laugaricio Trenčín in 2002, then FK AS Trenčín in 2003 — before a 2015 merger with a local handball side produced the current name, AS Trenčín, short for Asociácia športov Trenčín. Through all of it the team never left the city.

Its best football came earlier, under different letterhead. As Jednota Trenčín it finished runner-up in the Czechoslovak championship in 1963 and reached the Mitropa Cup final three years later, losing to Fiorentina. A Slovak Cup followed in 1978. The modern club matched that run only once, winning the league and cup double in 2014/15.

Games against Spartak Trnava carry the sharpest edge on the fixture list, a rivalry Trenčín supporters describe in blunt terms rather than a shared name for it. The club now plays out of the 6,366-seat Štadión na Sihoti, still in red and white, still working to turn out the next player worth selling on.