2018–19 Slovak First Football League

The 2018–19 Slovak First Football League (known as the Fortuna Liga^[4] for sponsorship reasons) was the 26th season of first-tier football league in Slovakia since its establishment in 1993.

Fortuna Liga

Season	2018–19
Dates	21 July 2018 – 24 May 2019
Champions	Slovan Bratislava
Relegated	Železiarne Podbrezová
Champions League	Slovan Bratislava
Europa League	DAC Dunajská Streda Spartak Trnava MFK Ružomberok
Matches played	195
Goals scored	552 (2.83 per match)
Top goalscorer	Andraž Šporar (29 goals)
Biggest home win	Slovan 6–0 Michalovce (3 November 2018)
Biggest away win	Sereď 0–5 D.Streda (13 April 2019)
Highest scoring	Slovan 6–2 Žilina (11 May 2019)
Highest attendance	22,500 (Slovan-Trnava)[1]
Lowest attendance	200 (Sereď-Žilina)[2]
Average attendance	2400 [3]
← 2017–18 2019–20 → All statistics correct as of 25 May 2019.

Spartak Trnava were the defending champions after winning their first Slovak title in the previous season. Slovan Bratislava won their first title since 2014 and their record-extending ninth Slovak league title overall.

Teams

12 teams competed in the league – the top 11 sides from the 2017–18 season and one promoted team from the 2. liga. The promoted team was Sereď. They replaced Tatran Prešov.

• FC Spartak Trnava
• ŠK Slovan Bratislava
• FC DAC 1904 Dunajská Streda
• MŠK Žilina
• AS Trenčín
• MFK Ružomberok
• FC Nitra
• MFK Zemplín Michalovce
• ŽP Šport Podbrezová
• FC ViOn Zlaté Moravce
• FK Senica
• ŠKF iClinic Sereď

Stadiums and locations

Trenčín

Senica

Podbrezová

Sereď

Dunajská Streda

Ružomberok

Slovan

Trnava

Žilina

Zlaté Moravce

Nitra

Michalovce

Location of teams in Fortuna Liga 2018–19

Team	Home city	Stadium	Capacity	2017–18 season
AS Trenčín	Trenčín	Stadium Myjava[5]	2,709	5th in Fortuna Liga
DAC Dunajská Streda	Dunajská Streda	MOL Aréna	12,700	3rd in Fortuna Liga
FK Železiarne Podbrezová	Podbrezová	ZELPO Aréna	4,061	9th in Fortuna Liga
FK Senica	Senica	OMS Arena	5,070	11th in Fortuna Liga
Michalovce	Michalovce	Mestský futbalový štadión	4,440	8th in Fortuna Liga
MFK Ružomberok	Ružomberok	Štadión pod Čebraťom	4,817	6th in Fortuna Liga
FC Nitra	Nitra	Štadión pod Zoborom	7,480	7th in Fortuna Liga
ŠKF Sereď	Sereď	Štadión pod Zoborom[5]	7,480	2. Liga Champion
MŠK Žilina	Žilina	Štadión pod Dubňom	11,258	4th in Fortuna Liga
Slovan Bratislava	Bratislava	Tehelné pole	22,500	2nd in Fortuna Liga
Spartak Trnava	Trnava	Anton Malatinský Stadium	19,200	Champions
ViOn Zlaté Moravce	Zlaté Moravce	FC ViOn Stadium	4,000	10th in Fortuna Liga

AS Trenčín	Dunajská Streda	Podbrezová	Michalovce
Stadium Myjava	MOL Aréna UEFA	ZELPO Aréna	Mestský futbalový štadión
Capacity: 2,709	Capacity: 12,700	Capacity: 4,061	Capacity: 4,440
FK Senica	MFK Ružomberok	MŠK Žilina	Slovan Bratislava
OMS Arena UEFA	Štadión pod Čebraťom	Štadión pod Dubňom UEFA	Tehelné pole UEFA
Capacity: 4,500	Capacity: 4,817	Capacity: 11,258	Capacity: 22,500
Spartak Trnava	ŠKF Sereď	ViOn Zlaté Moravce	FC Nitra
Anton Malatinský Stadium UEFA	Štadión pod Zoborom UEFA	Štadión FC ViOn	Štadión pod Zoborom UEFA
Capacity: 19,200	Capacity: 7,480	Capacity: 4,000	Capacity: 7,480

Personnel and kits

Team	President	Manager	Captain	Kitmaker	Shirt sponsor
AS Trenčín	Jozef Liptovský	Ivan Galád	Peter Kleščík	Adidas	ORION Tip
DAC Dunajská Streda	Oszkár Világi	Peter Hyballa	Tomáš Huk	macron	Kukkonia
FK Železiarne Podbrezová	Július Kriváň	Vladimír Veselý	Miroslav Viazanko	Adidas	Železiarne Podbrezová
FK Senica	Vladimír Levársky	Ricardo Chéu	Erik Otrísal	hummel	-
MFK Ružomberok	Milan Fiľo	David Holoubek	Dominik Kružliak	Adidas	MAESTRO
MŠK Žilina	Jozef Antošík	Jaroslav Kentoš	Michal Škvarka	Nike	Preto
Slovan Bratislava	Ivan Kmotrík	Martin Ševela	Vasil Bozhikov	Adidas	grafobal
FC Nitra	Jozef Petráni	Michal Kuruc	Miloš Šimončič	Jako	-
Spartak Trnava	Dušan Keketi	Michal Ščasný	Erik Grendel	Adidas	PN Invest
ViOn Zlaté Moravce	Karol Škula	Karol Praženica	Martin Chren	Erreà	ViOn
MFK Michalovce	Ján Sabol	Anton Šoltis	Igor Žofčák	Adidas	ISDB, St. Nicolaus
ŠKF Sereď	Róbert Stareček	Karel Stromšík	Martin Mečiar	Nike	iClinic

Managerial changes

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Position in table	Replaced by	Date of appointment
Spartak Trnava	Nestor El Maestro	End of contract	21 May 2018[6]	Pre-season	Radoslav Látal	8 June 2018[7]
MŠK Žilina	Adrián Guľa	Signed with Slovakia U21	28 May 2018[8]		Jaroslav Kentoš	28 May 2018[9]
MFK Ružomberok	Norbert Hrnčár	End of contract	28 May 2018[10]		David Holoubek	4 June 2018[11]
AS Trenčín	Vladimír Cifranič	Become assistant	2 June 2018		Ricardo Moniz	2 June 2018[12]
Dunajská Streda	Marco Rossi	Signed with Hungary	20 June 2018[13]		Peter Hyballa	16 July 2018[14]
FK Senica	Ton Caanen	Become general manager	3 August 2018	10	Frederico Ricardo	3 August 2018[15]
ŠKF Sereď	Michal Gašparík	Sacked	4 September 2018	8	Karel Stromšík	4 September 2018[16]
AS Trenčín	Ricardo Moniz	Resigned	28 October 2018	6	Vladimír Cifranič (carateker)	28 October 2018[17]
FC ViOn Zlaté Moravce	Juraj Jarábek	Resigned	5 November 2018	12	Branislav Mráz (carateker)	5 November 2018[18]
FK Železiarne Podbrezová	Marek Fabuľa	Sacked	27 November 2018	11	Gergely Geri (carateker)	27 November 2018[19]
FC Spartak Trnava	Radoslav Látal	Resigned	13 December 2018[20]	8	Michal Ščasný	22 December 2018[21]
FC ViOn Zlaté Moravce	Branislav Mráz	End of interim spell	13 December 2018	12	Karol Praženica	13 December 2018[22]
FK Železiarne Podbrezová	Gergely Geri	End of interim spell	4 January 2019	10	Vladimír Veselý	4 January 2019[23]
FK Senica	Frederico Ricardo	Released	9 January 2019	11	Ricardo Chéu	9 January 2019[24]
FC Nitra	Ivan Galád	Released	13 March 2019	8	Michal Kuruc	13 March 2019[25]
AS Trenčín	Vladimír Cifranič	End by own request	20 March 2019	9	Matthias Kohler	20 March 2019[26]
AS Trenčín	Matthias Kohler	Released	7 May 2019	11	Ivan Galád	7 May 2019[27]

Regular stage

League table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Slovan Bratislava	22	18	4	0	53	18	+35	58	Qualification for the championship group
2	Žilina	22	13	5	4	39	23	+16	44
3	DAC Dunajská Streda	22	13	5	4	42	27	+15	44
4	Ružomberok	22	9	9	4	34	20	+14	36
5	Zemplín Michalovce	22	9	5	8	29	33	−4	32
6	Sereď	22	9	4	9	27	29	−2	31
7	Nitra	22	7	5	10	27	30	−3	26	Qualification for the relegation group
8	Spartak Trnava	22	7	4	11	28	28	0	25
9	Trenčín	22	6	4	12	30	40	−10	22
10	Železiarne Podbrezová	22	6	3	13	22	35	−13	21
11	Senica	22	3	6	13	20	43	−23	15
12	ViOn Zlaté Moravce	22	4	2	16	19	44	−25	14

Source: Fortuna Liga (in Slovak), Soccerway
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Head-to-head points; 3) Head-to-head goal difference; 4) Head-to-head away goals scored; 5) Play-off.^[28]

Results

Each team plays home-and-away against every other team in the league, for a total of 22 matches played each.

Home \ Away	DAC	NIT	POD	RUŽ	SEN	SER	SLO	TRV	TRČ	ZTM	ZPM	ŽIL
DAC Dunajská Streda	—	1–0	3–2	2–2	1–0	5–0	0–1	3–2	0–0	3–1	4–1	0–0
Nitra	2–3	—	1–3	0–0	1–0	0–2	1–2	0–0	2–1	4–1	2–1	0–2
Podbrezová	1–2	3–2	—	0–1	2–4	1–1	0–2	1–0	2–0	3–0	0–1	0–2
Ružomberok	0–1	3–1	3–0	—	4–0	0–0	0–2	3–1	1–0	4–0	0–0	3–1
Senica	1–2	1–1	1–1	1–1	—	0–0	1–2	1–0	0–2	3–0	2–4	0–1
Sereď	0–1	2–1	1–2	3–1	2–1	—	0–1	3–1	3–1	2–0	2–1	1–1
Slovan Bratislava	3–2	1–1	3–0	1–1	2–2	2–1	—	2–0	3–3	3–1	6–0	5–2
Spartak Trnava	3–1	2–3	2–0	0–0	4–1	2–1	1–2	—	3–1	1–0	3–0	1–2
Trenčín	3–3	0–1	1–1	1–4	3–0	5–1	0–3	1–0	—	1–0	1–2	0–2
ViOn Zlaté Moravce	1–2	0–3	1–0	1–1	4–0	0–1	1–4	1–1	3–1	—	2–0	1–2
Zemplín Michalovce	2–1	0–0	2–0	2–2	1–1	1–0	1–2	1–0	4–2	3–0	—	0–1
Žilina	2–2	2–1	2–0	3–0	5–0	2–1	0–1	1–1	2–3	2–1	2–2	—

Source: Fortuna Liga (in Slovak)
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
For upcoming matches, an "a" indicates there is an article about the rivalry between the two participants.

Championship group

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		SLO	DAC	RUŽ	ŽIL	ZMI	SER
1	Slovan Bratislava (C)	32	25	5	2	84	33	+51	80	Qualification for the Champions League first qualifying round		—	3–1	3–2	6–2	4–1	3–1
2	DAC Dunajská Streda	32	19	6	7	63	37	+26	63	Qualification for the Europa League first qualifying round		1–0	—	1–1	1–0	5–0	3–4
3	Ružomberok	32	15	11	6	50	31	+19	56			3–2	1–0	—	1–1	1–0	1–0
4	Žilina	32	16	6	10	56	44	+12	54			0–3	1–2	4–2	—	4–0	1–2
5	Zemplín Michalovce	32	11	7	14	39	58	−19	40			3–3	0–2	0–3	2–1	—	2–0
6	Sereď	32	11	5	16	39	54	−15	38			1–4	0–5	0–1	2–3	2–2	—

Source: Fortuna Liga (in Slovak), Soccerway
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Head-to-head points; 3) Head-to-head goal difference; 4) Head-to-head away goals scored; 5) Play-off.^[28]
(C) Champions

Relegation group

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation		TRN	SEN	NIT	ZLM	TRE	POD
7	Spartak Trnava (Q)	32	10	8	14	35	35	0	38	Qualification for the Europa League first qualifying round[a]		—	0–1	1–1	0–1	0–0	3–1
8	Senica	32	10	7	15	42	53	−11	37			2–0	—	4–1	3–1	4–0	0–0
9	Nitra	32	8	10	14	42	48	−6	34			0–1	2–3	—	2–2	2–2	2–2
10	ViOn Zlaté Moravce	32	10	4	18	33	55	−22	34			1–1	3–2	1–0	—	2–1	2–1
11	Trenčín (O)	32	8	7	17	41	56	−15	31	Qualification for the relegation play-offs		0–1	2–3	1–4	1–0	—	4–0
12	Železiarne Podbrezová (R)	32	7	8	17	28	48	−20	29	Relegation to the 2. Liga		0–0	1–0	1–1	0–1	0–0	—

Source: Fortuna Liga (in Slovak), Soccerway
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Head-to-head points; 3) Head-to-head goal difference; 4) Head-to-head away goals scored; 5) Play-off.^[28]
(O) Play-off winners; (Q) Qualified for the phase indicated; (R) Relegated
Notes:

1. Spartak Trnava qualified for the Europa League first qualifying round by winning the 2018-19 Slovak Cup

Europa League play-offs

Should one of the top 3 teams have won the 2018–19 Slovak Cup, Europa League qualification playoffs would have been held among the 4th, 5th, 6th team in the championship group and the top team of the relegation round. The 4th team played the top team of the relegation group and the 5th played the 6th in the semifinals. Winners of the semifinals would play the final to determine the Europa League qualification spot. Europa League qualification playoff games would be one-leg and played at the home pitch of the higher-ranked team. The winners would qualify for the first qualifying round of the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League. On 1 May 2019, Spartak Trnava, who didn't qualify for the championship group, won the cup, thus eliminating the need of playoffs.

Relegation play-offs

Team placed 11th in the relegation match faced 2nd team from 2. Liga 2018–19 for one spot in the next season.

All times are CEST (UTC+2).

First leg

FK Poprad	2–0	AS Trenčín
Pajer 10' Šesták 58'	Report

28 May 2019 (2019-05-28)

19:00

NTC Poprad, Poprad

Attendance: 2,310

Referee: Michal Očenáš

Second leg

AS Trenčín	4–1	FK Poprad
Sleegers 11' Šulek 26' Roguljić 78' Corryn 81'	Report	Horváth 28'

1 June 2019 (2019-06-01)

17:00

Štadión pod Dubňom, Žilina

Attendance: 988

Referee: Jozef Pavlík

4–3 on aggregate.

Season statistics

Top goalscorers

As of 25 May 2019

Rank	Player	Club	Goals[29]
1	Andraž Šporar	ŠK Slovan	29
2	Róbert Boženík	Žilina	13
3	Moha	Slovan	12
	Hamza Čataković	AS Trenčín
5	Kristopher Vida	DAC D.Streda	11
6	Vakoun Issouf Bayo	DAC D.Streda	10
	Tomáš Vestenický	Nitra
8	Izzy Tandir	Ružomberok	9
	Michal Škvarka	Žilina
	Kubilay Yilmaz	Trnava
	Tomáš Ďubek	Z.Moravce
	Kristi Qose	Ružomberok
	Joey Sleegers a	Trenčín

^a Included 1 play-off goal

Hat-tricks

Round	Player	For	Against	Result	Date	Ref
7	Tomáš Vestenický	FC Nitra	ViOn Zlaté Moravce	4–1	1 September 2018	[30]
18	Andrej Fábry	FC Nitra	ViOn Zlaté Moravce	0–3	8 December 2018	[31]
8.CH	Andraž Šporar	Slovan	Žilina	6–2	11 May 2019	[32]

Clean sheets

As of 25 May 2019

Rank	Player	Club	Clean sheets[33]
1	Matúš Macík	Ružomberok	13
2	Martin Jedlička	D.Streda	12
3	Dominik Holec	Žilina	9
	Dominik Greif	Slovan
5	Matúš Kira	Michalovce	8
6	Federico Taborda	Senica	7
7	Igor Šemrinec	Trenčín	5
8	Lukáš Hroššo	Nitra	4
	Pavol Penksa	Sereď
	Dobrivoj Rusov	Trnava
	Martin Vantruba	Podbrezová
	Adrián Chovan	Z.Moravce

Discipline

As of 25 May 2019

Player

• Most yellow cards: 13^[34]
  • Ľubomír Michalík (Sereď)

• Most red cards: 2^[34]
  • Macdonald Ngwa Niba (Nitra)
  • Yani Urdinov (Ruzomberok)
  • Ivan Diaz (Žilina)
  • Erik Grendel (Trnava)

Club

• Most yellow cards: 87^[35]
  • ŠKF Sereď

• Most red cards: 5^[36]
  • AS Trenčín

Awards

Player of the Month

Month	Player	Club	Ref
July/August	Erik Pačinda	Dunajská Streda	[37]
September	Tomáš Vestenický	FC Nitra	[37]
October	Róbert Boženík	MŠK Žilina	[37]
November/December	Andraž Šporar	Slovan Bratislava	[38]
February/March	Matúš Kira	Michalovce	[37]
April	Martin Jedlička	Dunajská Streda	[39]
May	Andraž Šporar	Slovan Bratislava	[40]

Top Eleven

Source:^[41]

• Goalkeeper: Dominik Greif (ŠK Slovan)
• Defence: Erick Davis (DAC D.Streda), Kristián Koštrna (DAC D.Streda), Dominik Kružliak (Ružomberok), Vasil Bozhikov (ŠK Slovan)
• Midfield: Miroslav Káčer (Žilina), Marin Ljubičić (DAC D.Streda/Slovan), Zsolt Kalmár (DAC D.Streda), Aleksandar Čavrić (ŠK Slovan), Moha (ŠK Slovan)
• Attack: Andraž Šporar (ŠK Slovan)

Top Eleven U-21

Source:^[5]

• Goalkeeper: Dominik Greif (ŠK Slovan)
• Defence: Lazarus Rota (Michalovce), Dominik Kružliak (Ružomberok), Matej Oravec (Trnava/Podbrezová), Branislav Sluka (MŠK Žilina)
• Midfield: Tihomir Kostadinov (Ružomberok), Miroslav Káčer (MŠK Žilina), Máté Vida (DAC D.Streda), Christián Herc (DAC D.Streda)
• Attack: Tomáš Vestenický (Nitra), Róbert Boženík (MŠK Žilina)

Individual awards

Manager of the season

Martin Ševela (ŠK Slovan)

Player of the Year

Andraž Šporar (ŠK Slovan)

Young player of the Year

Róbert Boženík (MŠK Žilina)

See also

• 2018–19 Slovak Cup
• 2018–19 2. Liga (Slovakia)
• List of transfers summer 2018
• List of transfers winter 2018-19
• List of foreign players