Lie Detectors, Losing Streaks, and the Weird World of Czech Soccer

On November 16th, FK Baník Most 1909, a small soccer club in the Czech second division, won a match. There wasn't much more to it at the time. Three points. Mid-week practice. Talk of the next opponent. November is near the season's halfway point, and this was only the team's third win. But with wins come hope, and with hope comes that quick, optimistic fan calculus of points needed for safety—or better yet, promotion. Baník Most won the second division in 2005 and spent three glorious years in the first division. Could it do it again? Was this the moment the team would finally click?

The answer to both those questions is a resounding no. Baník Most lost its next game, and its next… and its next. In fact, it hasn't won a match since that day in November. Baník Most's players haven't even managed a tie. They've lost 10 in a row, scoring just four goals in the process. It's the kind of losing streak that turns all involved into lost, desperate existentialists—the kind that carries momentum, where each game becomes easier and easier to lose.

Chances are you've never thought about lower division soccer in the Czech Republic. You've probably never heard of Most, a city of about 70,000 residents in the country's northwest, near the German border. Lower-division Eastern European soccer is serious journeyman stuff. It's local pride and cheap beer and a welcome distraction. But Baník Most's losing streak is notable outside of the Czech Republic, not because it's approaching some kind of record, but because the situation gets right at some pretty basic concepts of sportsmanship and the value of winning and losing. It also appears to be headed to court.

On May 4th, the club posted a message on its website in which it questioned the circumstances behind Baník Most's recent defeat to FK Pardubice, a mid-table team from a small town east of Prague. The message calls the match a particular disgrace, noting that Baník Most was already 4-0 down in the 30th minute. Pardubice eventually won 5-2. The message goes on to state that after an internal review, the club decided to proceed with an investigation, which will include lie detector-assisted player interrogations. The club brass isn't convinced the team sucks; it's convinced the team is sucking on purpose.

Match fixing is soccer's most important, most sinister problem, and leagues in Eastern Europe are not immune to corruption. But in the statement, the club fails to present any evidence of wrongdoing. And if they had evidence enough to make accusations, wouldn't that make a lie detector test unnecessary? All the statement notes is that particular, resounding loss, which sticks out like a dandelion in a garden of despair.

As accusations go, this one is a haymaker. I haven't seen the match in question, so I can't comment on whether Baník Most's terrible defending looked suspect or simply slipshod. But as someone who knows a thing or two about being on terrible sports teams, I can speak to that feeling of hopeless momentum, the feeling of being so destroyed that you'd just rather not anymore. There comes a point where you're just trying to make it through. You're watching the clock and hoping it doesn't get too bad today. Eventually, you learn to find satisfaction in things other than the final score, otherwise why bother? I've been on teams where scoring those two goals, like Baník Most did against Pardubice, would have felt pretty fucking satisfying, regardless of how many the other team put in.

And here's the thing. Really sucking is important. The most well-trodden cliché for why youth sports exist holds that they teach kids perseverance in the face of adversity—because as a society, we see value in knowing what it's like to struggle and maybe embarrass yourself a little bit in pursuit of a common goal. It just so happens that it's also unavoidable: for every winner, there's a loser.

Disappointment is part of the game. How you manage that disappointment is what's ultimately important. And without evidence of wrongdoing, the way team management has dealt with this particular long series of disappointments is absurd. It brings to mind wildly ridiculous scenarios of paranoia and fear. I see little kids in little league uniforms seated at tables strapped into test equipment, a dad-coach pacing back and forth, arms crossed, asking hard questions about balls and blown double plays.

The lie detector attracted a strong rebuke from FIFPro, the international players' union. "FIFPro is totally opposed to the use of a lie detector test and strongly recommends all players not to cooperate with this test," reads part of FIFPro's statement on the matter.

The statement goes on to suggest the club hasn't paid the players since February, before closing with a quote from Wil van Megen, the director of FIFPro's legal department: "It is a fact that players are more vulnerable to approaches by match-fixers when their salaries are not paid and are consequently encountering financial difficulties. Therefore FIFPro strongly advises the directors of FC Banik Most to solve that problem first, before it starts portraying its own players as criminals."

Frustration at a losing streak is understandable. So is anger at perceived lack of effort. But engineering financial hardship and then wielding accusations? I'm not sure what's more suspicious: the losses or the way the team brass has handled them.