Beluša

What passes for a derby in Beluša is smaller than a Slovak Cup night, but it draws a bigger crowd: the fixture against neighbouring Púchov, settled in the West Slovakia lower divisions and reported locally as a dead-even affair, matters more to the village than most of what fills the league table.

The bigger nights arrived by draw, not by rank. Twice in five seasons a third-tier club found itself hosting a name from the top of Slovak football: Slovan Bratislava came to the KOVO stadium in the 2020/21 Slovnaft Cup and left 2–0 winners, and Spartak Trnava followed into the third round in 2024/25, after AS Trenčín had already made the trip the year before. None of it changed Beluša's standing — no league title, no cup run past the early rounds — but it gave a village ground three afternoons it will keep talking about longer than most of its league seasons.

League form has had one high point: top of the 3. Liga West group in 2018/19, since settled back into the same division. What the West Slovak Football Association chose to reward in December 2024 was different work altogether — Beluša was named the region's best amateur club after its youth section grew from 40 players to 250 in six years, a number the academy, now run separately as FK Beluša YOUNG, has kept close to since.

The name on that growth is recent. Until 2020 the club played as TJ Kovo Beluša, after the local steelworks that gave it both its funding and the "Kovo" tag still attached to it. The badge changed; the ground the works helped build is the one Slovan and Trnava walked into.