Karviná

Karviná sits deep in the coal country of Czech Silesia, hard against the Polish border. Football there carries that history in its name: OKD, the mining company that once ran the pits, became title partner of the football club and turned MFK Karviná into MFK OKD Karviná.

The club has gone up to the Czech top flight twice, in 2016 and in 2023, and through both promotions the constant on the pitch was Jiří Fleišman, a defender who wore the captain's armband through more than 400 league appearances and became the player supporters measured the club's ups and downs against.

In the 2025/26 season Karviná won its first major trophy, beating Jablonec 3-1 in the final of the MOL Cup. Yet the same season the club was demoted administratively over a match-fixing scandal.

MFK Karviná was formed in 2003, when the financially stricken FC Karviná was reorganised and merged with local side TJ Jäkl Karviná to keep football alive in the city — a rescue that carried on a line running back to Frýštát and Polonia Karwina, the clubs Karviná's mining communities had fielded since around 1920.