Freiburg performance shows Jablonec belong on European stage

Main Club Sponsor

TICKETS

SHOP

Tonight's opponents ran the Europa League finalists close and have beaten Rangers earlier this season.

Bruce Talbot

2026-10-22T05:00+01:00

Jablonec head coach Luboz Kozel.

FK Jablonec come into tonight’s game against Albion on the back of a fourth defeat of the season in the Czech League.

Luboz Kozel’s side went down 3-2 to Viktoria Plzen on Sunday and were 3-0 down at one stage before late goals from Dusan Pavlovic and an own goal.

They dropped to seventh in the Czech League as a result, but Kozel’s side have already shown this season that they are capable of competing on the domestic and European front.

They started their Conference League league stage campaign with a tough assignment at unbeaten Bundesliga outfit Freiburg, who reached last year’s Europa League final before losing 3-0 to Aston Villa, last Thursday.

Antonin Rusek levelled after the Germans had taken an early lead but an own goal by Pavlovic restored Freiburg’s lead and they scored again before Garang Kuol, who is on loan from Sparta Prague, made it 3-2 in stoppage time.

Jablonec defender Dusan Pavlovic

Jablonec are competing in Europe for the seventh time in the last ten seasons after finishing fifth in the league last season.

That would not normally have been enough to reach Europe but MFK Karvina, who beat Jablonec 3-1 in last season’s Czech Cup final, were expelled by the league over match-fixing allegations.

The Stadion Strelnice where Albion play their second UEFA Conference League league stage game tonight. 📷James Boardman

UEFA upheld the ruling and a reshuffle of the places given to Czech clubs in their competitions saw Jablonec enter the Conference League.

Their campaign began when they beat Croatian club Varazdin 4-3 on aggregate in the second qualifying round.

They then defeated RDS (Latvia) 4-1 on aggregate and drew Rangers in the play-off round.

Rangers won 1-0 at Ibrox but a goal from Vakhtang Tchanturishvili levelled the tie on aggregate and Jablonec won the penalty shoot-out 4-3.

On the domestic front, four wins from their opening six games left the side trailing Slavia Prague but they have won just once in five league matches since although they will relish facing Premier League opposition at the 5,690 capacity Stadion Strelnice for the first time this evening.

Tonight's match officials