AC Sparta Prague

Athletic Club Sparta Praha (), commonly known as Sparta Prague and Sparta Praha, is a professional football club based in Prague.

It is the most successful club in the Czech Republic and one of the most successful in central Europe, winning the central European Cup (also known as the Mitropa Cup) three times and reaching the semi-finals of the European Cup (now the UEFA Champions League) in 1992 and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1973.

Sparta have won a record 38 domestic league titles, a record 16 Czech Cups (and its predecessor Czechoslovak Cup), and two Czech Supercups.

Golden years

Golden periods alternated with years when Sparta fans only nostalgically remembered the "good old times". After substantial changes driven by the socialist regime, bringing frequent changes of the club's name rather than achievements to be proud of, the title in 1954 was the last one before a long period of misery. Only the great era of the team around Andrej Kvašňák in the 1960s brought back memories of the club's golden years.

There are still many people who recollect the era of Andrej Kvašňák, Jiří Tichý and Václav Mašek. Those were the days when Sparta hosted the biggest number of fans in its history, with the stadium at that time accommodating almost 40,000. All three of the above-mentioned heroes were part of the national team that finished second at the 1962 World Cup in Chile. Other important players in these "golden years" were Josef Vojta, Vladimír Táborský and Ivan Mráz.

Relegation and comeback

Up until 1975, Sparta was the only Czech club that had never been relegated to the second division. In this year, however, due to a number of circumstances, the team dropped to division two. The club only spent one year in this division, In 1999–2000, it won its initial group under the management of Ivan Hašek, and was then third in the quarter-final group. In that group, Sparta came up against a Barcelona squad which went on to reach the semi-finals.

In the 2001–02 season, Sparta was drawn against the eventual winners of both the European competitions during the course of its run. Feyenoord lost twice to Sparta in the champions league group stage and managed to qualify for the UEFA Cup, which it went on to win. Sparta went on to meet Real Madrid in the quarter-final that year. Sparta did not qualify for the group stage in 2002–03, when it was beaten by the Belgian club Genk in the third round of qualifying. 2003–04 saw Sparta take on two Italian giants; initially, the club beat Lazio in the group stage, but after an initial draw Sparta failed to get into the quarter-finals past Milan. The group stage in 2004–05 did not work out at all well for Sparta. After drawing with Manchester United at the sold-out Toyota Arena, the other matches were lost and the club finished last in the group with the club achieving their worst-ever return of just one point from the six matches. and a heavy 0–4 defeat to Slavia Prague. However, a tactical shift brought immediate results, starting with a 1–0 win over Viktoria Plzeň, Sparta's first in Plzeň since 2011. This turnaround led to further league victories and progression in the MOL Cup.

By the end of the autumn, Sparta trailed Viktoria Plzeň by seven points. After reinforcing the squad during the winter break, Sparta dominated the spring season, securing first place at the end of the regular season. In the championship group, Sparta overcame Slavia 3–2 in a crucial derby, with Ladislav Krejčí scoring the decisive penalty. A draw against Slovácko secured their 37th league title, the first in nine years.

Sparta's good form continued into the 2023–24 season, with strong domestic performances and a brief run in the UEFA Champions League qualifiers, where they were eliminated by FC Copenhagen after a 3–3 aggregate draw. Despite some setbacks in both domestic and European competitions, Sparta finished the year strongly, advancing to the knockout stages of the Europa League and securing key league victories. They were knocked out in the Round of 16 by Liverpool, 11–2 on aggregate.

End of Priske's tenure and leadership changes

Following the 2023–24 season, Brian Priske left to join Feyenoord and was replaced by Lars Friis. Sparta announced the signing of Kosovo international Ermal Krasniqi, while club captain Ladislav Krejčí departed for Girona. Filip Panák was named the new captain.

Sparta's preseason saw wins against AIK Stockholm and Spartak Trnava, but also a heavy defeat to Brøndby. They strengthened their squad further with the additions of Mathias Ross and Imanol García de Albéniz. In the new league season, Sparta won their opener against Pardubice and advanced through the UEFA Champions League qualifiers, defeating Shamrock Rovers before facing FCSB. After a dramatic 3–2 win over FCSB, Sparta twice defeated Malmö FF for a place in the Champions League group stage for the first time since 2005.

Historical names:

1893 — Athletic Club Královské Vinohrady
1894 — Athletic Club Sparta
1948 — Athletic Club Sparta Bubeneč
1949 — Sokol Bratrství Sparta
1951 — Sparta ČKD Sokolovo
1953 — TJ Spartak Praha Sokolovo
1965 — TJ Sparta ČKD Praha
1990 — TJ Sparta Praha
1991 — AC Sparta Praha
1993 — AC Sparta Praha fotbal, a.s.

Club symbols

thumb|right|Colours of Sparta

The name Sparta was inspired by the fighting spirit and courage of the people from the ancient city of Sparta. From the very beginning, the colours of Sparta were blue (symbolizing speed, athletics and sport in general), red and yellow (the official colours of Royal City of Prague). In 1906, one of the members of the committee brought (from his trip to England) jerseys of the London club Arsenal. From that time, Sparta has typically played in their red (or, to be more precise, dark red or maroon) colours. In May 2025 a group of Sparta fans were photographed wearing white hoods and giving Nazi salutes in Olomouc, which the club condemned, issuing lifetime stadium bans to those involved.

The main ultras group, Letenští, is known for passionate support but has also been linked to nationalist and right-wing sentiments. Despite these issues within parts of the fanbase, Sparta Prague as a club publicly denounces racism and extremist behaviour. The club has taken steps such as banning jerseys with extremist symbols and screening anti-racism videos before matches.

Out on loan

Reserve squad

Women's section

Notable former players

Player records in the Czech First League

Highlighted players are in the current squad.

Most appearances

{| class="wikitable"

! # !! Name !! Matches

| 1 || Jaromír Blažek || 240

| 2 || Jiří Novotný || 235

| 3 || Tomáš Řepka || 215

| 4 || Michal Horňák || 185

| 5 || Horst Siegl|| 179

| 6 || Bořek Dočkal || 171

| 7 || Ladislav Krejčí (1992) || 167

|rowspan="2"| 8 || Vratislav Lokvenc ||rowspan="2"| 163

| Zdeněk Svoboda

| 10 || Václav Kadlec|| 162

Most goals

{| class="wikitable"

! # !! Name !! Goals

| 1 || Horst Siegl || 92

| 2 || David Lafata || 83

| 3 || Vratislav Lokvenc || 74

|rowspan="2"| 4 || Václav Kadlec ||rowspan="2"| 50

| Jan Kuchta

| 6 || Lukáš Haraslín || 47

| 7 || Tomáš Jun || 36

|rowspan="2"| 8 || Adam Hložek ||rowspan="2"| 34

| Ladislav Krejčí (1999)

|rowspan="2"| 10 || Libor Sionko ||rowspan="2"| 33

| Josef Hušbauer

Most clean sheets

{| class="wikitable"

! # !! Name !! Clean sheets

| 1 || Jaromír Blažek ||111

| 2 || Tomáš Poštulka || 40

| 3 || Petr Kouba || 37

| 4 || Florin Niță || 36

| 5 || Tomáš Vaclík || 32

Coaches

Karel Maleček (1907–11)
František Malý (1911–18)
Johny Dick (1919–23)
Václav Špindler (1924–27)
Johny Dick (1928–33)
František Sedlaczek (1933–38)
Josef Kuchynka (1939–44)
František Sedlaczek (1945–47)
Erich Srbek (1948–53, 1957–58)
Vlastimil Preis
Karel Senecký
Jiří Šimonek
Karel Kolský (1959–63)
Jaroslav Štumpf
Václav Ježek (1964–69)
Milan Navara
Karel Kolský (1970–71)
Tadeusz Kraus (1971–74)
Ivan Mráz
Zdeněk Roček
Štefan Čambal (1975–76)
Zdeněk Roček (1976)
Dušan Uhrin (1976)
Arnošt Hložek (1977–78)
Antonín Rýgr (1978)
Jiří Rubáš (1978–81)
Dušan Uhrin (1981–82)
Václav Ježek (1982–84)
Vladimír Táborský (1984–85)
Ján Zachar (1985–86)
Václav Ježek (1986–88)
Jozef Jarabinský (1988–90)
Václav Ježek (1990–91)
Dušan Uhrin (1991–93)
Karol Dobiáš (1993–94)
Jozef Chovanec (1994)
Vladimír Borovička (1994)
Jürgen Sundermann (October 1994 – March 1995)
Jozef Jarabinský (March 1995 – December 1995)
Vlastimil Petržela (1996)
Jozef Chovanec (August 1996 – June 1998)
Zdeněk Ščasný (July 1998 – June 1999)
Ivan Hašek (July 1999 – June 2001)
Jaroslav Hřebík (2001–02)
Vítězslav Lavička (April–June 2002)
Jozef Jarabinský (July–December 2002)
Jiří Kotrba (February 2003 – March 2004)
František Straka (March 2004 – December 2004)
Jaroslav Hřebík (December 2004 – December 2005)
Stanislav Griga (December 2005 – August 2006)
Michal Bílek (September 2006 – June 2008)
Jozef Chovanec (June – July 2008)
Vítězslav Lavička (July – October 2008)
Jozef Chovanec (October 2008 – December 2011)
Martin Hašek (December 2011 – May 2012)
Vítězslav Lavička (July 2012 – April 2015)
Zdeněk Ščasný (April 2015 – September 2016)
David Holoubek (September 2016 – December 2016)
Tomáš Požár (December 2016 – March 2017)
Petr Rada (March 2017 – May 2017)
Andrea Stramaccioni (May 2017 – March 2018)
Pavel Hapal (March 2018 – July 2018)
Zdeněk Ščasný (August 2018 – April 2019)
Michal Horňák (April 2019 – June 2019)
Václav Jílek (June 2019 – February 2020)
Václav Kotal (February 2020 – February 2021)
Pavel Vrba (February 2021 – May 2022)
Michal Horňák (May 2022)
Brian Priske (June 2022 – June 2024)
Lars Friis (June 2024 – May 2025)
Luboš Loučka (May 2025)
Brian Priske (June 2025 – present)

Current technical staff

{|class="wikitable"

!Position

!Name

|Head coach

| Brian Priske

|Assistant coach

| Diarmuid O'Carroll Jack Wilson Lukas Babalola

|Goalkeeper coach

| Daniel Zítka Martin Ticháček Aleš Hruška

|Reserve coach

| Luboš Loučka

|Development coach

| Tim Sparv

|Head of performance

| Ian Coll

|Fitness coach

| Tomáš Malý Radek Říha

|Analysts

| Ondřej Janda Marko Krigovský

|Sports scientist

| Ciaran O'Reilly

|Team manager

| Miroslav Baranek

|Kitman

| Luděk Stracený Tomáš Majer

European statistics

The following is a list of the all-time statistics from Sparta's games in the three UEFA tournaments it has participated in, as well as the overall total. The list contains the tournament, the number of games played (Pld), won (W), drawn (D) and lost (L). The statistics include qualification matches.

:As of 24 February 2022

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!width="244"|Competition

!width="35"|

|scope="row" align="left"|European Cup/UEFA Champions League

|146||54||29||63||190||204||

|scope="row" align="left"|Cup Winners' Cup

|30||15||5||10||68||32||+36

|scope="row" align="left"|UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League

|124||50||34||40||175||153||+22

|scope="row" align="left"|UEFA Europa Conference League

|2||0||0||2||1||3||–2

|-class="sortbottom"

! Total !! 302 !! 119 !! 68 !! 115 !! 434 !! 392 !! +42

UEFA club coefficient ranking

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! Rank !! Team !! Points

|62||align=left| Sevilla||39.000

|63||align=left| Athletic Bilbao||38.750

|64||align=left bgcolor="#ddffdd"| Sparta Prague||38.250

|65||align=left| Slovan Bratislava||36.000

|66||align=left| Rennais||35.000

Honours

Domestic

Bohemian Football Union Championship/Czechoslovak First League/Czech First League:
Winners (38): 1912, 1919, 1922, 1925–26, 1926–27, 1931–32, 1935–36, 1937–38, 1938–39, 1943–44, 1945–46, 1947–48, 1952, 1954, 1964–65, 1966–67, 1983–84, 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1990–91, 1992–93, 1993–94, 1994–95, 1996–97, 1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2006–07, 2009–10, 2013–14, 2022–23, 2023–24
Czechoslovak Cup/Czech Cup:
Winners (16): 1963–64, 1971–72, 1975–76, 1979–80, 1983–84, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1991–92, 1995–96, 2003–04, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2013–14, 2019–20, 2023–24
Czech Supercup:
Winners (2): 2010, 2014

Continental

Mitropa Cup (Central European Cup)
Winners (3): 1927, 1935, 1964

Club records

Biggest home win: Sparta Prague 12–0 Galatasaray SK (1921–22)

Czech First League records

Best position: 1st (see Honours)
Worst position: 5th (2005–06, 2017–18)
Biggest home win: Sparta 7–0 České Budějovice (1999–2000)
Biggest away win: Žižkov 1–6 Sparta (1998–99), Hradec Králové 0–5 Sparta (2001–02), Most 0–5 Sparta (2007–08), Brno 0–5 Sparta (2010–11), Mladá Boleslav 0–5 Sparta (2023–24)
Biggest home defeat: Sparta 0–3 Jablonec (2006–07), Sparta 1–4 Slavia (2008–09), Sparta 0–3 Liberec (2011–12), Sparta 0–3 Mladá Boleslav (2011–12), Sparta 0–3 Plzeň (2015–16), Sparta 0–3 Slavia (2019–20)
Biggest away defeat: Plzeň 4–0 Sparta (2018–19, 2023–24), Slovácko 4–0 Sparta (2021–22), Slavia 4–0 Sparta (2022–23)

Notes

References

External links

Official website
AC Sparta Prague at UEFA