Last semester brought significant growth for AAU’s football club with participation and support like never before. This spring, the team seeks to continue despite the new challenges that face them.
In Fall 2025, the club set the record for its biggest single-game crowd in club history on Nov. 11, with over 40 fans travelling an hour to Pilsen for AAU’s first competitive game, indicative of the organization’s new surge in popularity.
Due in part to much of last semester’s team being made up of study abroad students, the size of the team has significantly reduced, and there is much work to be done to increase the participation levels to those previously seen. The team hopes a new and improved marketing approach can help to solve this issue.
While the club fell short of its goal to advance to the first league after defeat in Pilsen last semester, head coach Matyáš Kousek ensures that battling their way to that top level remains the main priority of the club.
The team will remain under Kousek’s leadership on the pitch, following his appointment at the beginning of fall semester. Kousek shares how the main takeaways from the results of his first semester coaching the team will inform how he approaches the next.
“We need to work much more on physical fitness, work on tactical understanding and also help level up the current skill differences we have,” Kousek said.
While the team will continue to try and achieve any unfinished goals from last semester, there are also notable expansions coming to the club, most significantly the formation of a smaller team to participate in 6 vs. 6 (5+1) games. Friendlies with other universities and amateur teams are being scheduled for the club, with the team also joining an amateur league in the new semester, likely leading to more upcoming matches.
This new expansion into small-side football, coupled with the appointment of new president Goncalo Rodrigues and vice president Tristan Pichereau are some of the biggest changes coming to the club this season.
However, while the increase in professionality and organization will surely pay large dividends, the team must deal with the real challenge of increasing the significantly shrunken roster size.
Despite some of the new additions and challenges this new semester, the goal and culture of the team remains unchanged.
“We strive to maintain our vision of creating a community rather than just a team,” Kousek said.
If last semester was any indication, the AAU football club has the capability to become a significant part of the university’s culture and community, and it will be intriguing to see how things unfold in the coming months.
