České Budějovice beat Jihlava 5:3 in a club friendly match on Monday. The game took place at the Jihlava arena on 1 September 2026. Both sides were clearly still working towards full fitness rather than testing each other for points.
Jihlava had been building momentum before this one. They won 5:1 against Pardubice Dynamo B on 25 August and followed up with a 3:1 victory over HC Olomouc three days later. But a 0:1 defeat to the same Dynamo side on 27 August showed they could still find rough spots.
České Budějovice's recent run looked far more chaotic. A 2:7 hammering by Rapperswil-Jona Lakers on 28 August sat alongside a 0:3 loss to Zug the day before. Yet they had also found a way back into it, beating Salzburg 5:1 on 12 August and edging Slovan Bratislava 5:4 in a tight contest on 20 August.
And here's the thing about friendlies — the scoreline rarely tells you much about where either team actually stands. Both sides threw players at the problem in different combinations. The result was simply another data point in a pre-season that will likely run until October.
What matters more is the pattern. Jihlava's 4:3 win over Mladá Boleslav on 18 August and the 0:3 loss to Kometa Brno on 13 August showed they could go both ways. České Budějovice's 2:3 defeat to Jihlava itself on 6 August suggests these two sides know each other's habits well enough by now.