For those who don't know, my first football love is AC Sparta Praha from the Czech Republic.  The good news is that after a little bit of a slow start this season, they are in first place over defending champions FC Slovan Liberec.  Liberec just recently became a force in the Czech Gambrinus Liga.

This is the league table with points.  The top two teams qualify for Champion's League next year, #1 goes to the 3rd qualifying round, the last qualifying round before the group stage and #2 goes into the 2nd qualifying round.  #3 and whoever wins the Czech FA cup (Sparta and Liberec play in the final, so Sparta can win the double this year) or 4th place if the cup winners are already qualified for European competition go to the UEFA cup.  The bottom two teams are relegated.  So Iron Sparta will be going to Champion's League regardless of place.

1.	AC Sparta Praha	59
2.	FC Slovan Liberec	58
3.	SK Slavia Praha	55
4.	FK Mladá Boleslav	55
5.	FC Viktoria Plzeň	45
6.	FC Baník Ostrava	43
7.	1. FC Brno	43
8.	FK Teplice	42
9.	FK Jablonec 97	35
10.	SK Dynamo Č. Budějovice	34
11.	FK SIAD Most	31
12.	SK Kladno	30
13.	FC Tescoma Zlín	26
14.	SK Sigma Olomouc	25
15.	FK Marila Příbram	21
16.	1. FC Slovácko	19

This weekend, Sparta plays 11th place Most while Liberec plays Mlada Boleslav, another rising power in the Gambrinus Liga who finished second last year.  Sparta was 5th last year, one of their worst finishes since 1993 when the Czech league was formed after the breakup of Czechoslovakia.  They did however qualify for the UEFA cup by virtue of winning the Czech Cup.  They progressed to the group stage by beating Hearts of Midlothian of Scotland and then did not get past the group stage. 

So while RSL may suck, Sparta is back to being the champions that they usually are.

        

 

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