In the 2017/18 season, the Czech top flight was fighting for direct qualification to the Champions League group stage. The mathematics were relentless: whoever won the title was guaranteed a ticket among the European elite.
Both Prague giants - Sparta and Slavia - spent unprecedentedly, bringing in foreign players indiscriminately. Names like Danny, Rio Mavuba, Marc Janko and Semih Kaya appeared on the roster.
"We're going to fight with a stick in our hand against tanks," Sadek stated from his position as general manager, only to see the first place claimed by his team Viktoria Plzen.
It was only the fifth championship triumph in history for the club from the west of Bohemia. In the Champions League, they played against Real Madrid and AS Rome and, above all, earned over 700 million Czech Crowns for the club's coffers. All was set for a bright future... but instead of success came unexpected dark times.
Slavia started to dominate the league in an unparalleled way, the whole world was engulfed by the coronavirus pandemic and in 2021, the owner Tomas Paclik left Plzen after 11 years and the club was bought from him by the existing manager Sadek, who however did not have enough capital to support the club. His business plan was to compete in the cups and sell players.
During COVID, however, clubs struggled to survive and collected big losses. Plzen were never one of the economically strong brands like Sparta or Slavia, and so the crisis affected them greatly. The club was downright dependent on participation in European cups, but from the summer of 2019 they had not been in the group stage for three consecutive years, which had a noticeable impact on the club's income.
The situation went so far that Sadek had to borrow money on his own to run the club to avoid the worst - bankruptcy and the fall of a laboriously built brand. In total, his debt climbed to 150 million crowns, about 6 million euros.
What was the plan, you ask? Very uncertain. Find a new investor and ideally sell the club to them. But that didn't work. Companies in Europe were recovering from the economic crisis and nobody wanted to invest in a non-profitable business, which Czech football ultimately is, with one or two exceptions.
The fate of Plzen, and indeed Sadek, lay on the pitch. Under coach Michal Bilek came a magical season that will never be forgotten by Plzen fans. In 2021/22, they left Sparta and Slavia behind in the league, and the following summer the team knocked out three opponents in the Champions League qualifying rounds and advanced to the group stage. There they met Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.
'Queen Viktoria', as the fans call her, was back in full force. The club's coffers were filled, Sadek's debts were paid off and the owner had averted a personal and sporting collapse from which it would be hard to recover.
"I was dead, then half-dead and now I'll be alive again for a while," Sadek uttered after their qualification to the Champions League.
For the next two seasons, Sparta ruled the Czech Republic ahead of Slavia, while Plzen returned to the third position in the league. However, with the difference that they were economically stable. This was mainly due to the fact that a year after the summer fairy tale, Sadek found new owners and sold the club to an Austrian businessman.
However, this was not the end of his journey in Plzen. He stayed and continues to run it from the position of general manager as he once did... And the story continues.
They are not doing badly at all. For the last few seasons, Plzen had a very experienced squad full of older players and had been accused of needing a rebuild. In the summer of 2023, the club had one of the oldest squads in the Czech league (with an average age of almost 27 years). This summer, however, Viktoria have rejuvenated to 25.4 years old.
The thinking has also changed. Whereas in the past Sadek often targeted players who were coming to the end of their contracts or had already played some time, now he has no problem reaching for young talent.
Moreover, the club has started to be pragmatic on the transfer front. For example, they traded their number one goalkeeper Jindrich Stanek for two young players from Slavia (Lukas Cerv and Matej Valenta) and a severance package. Today, Cerv is an important part of the lineup and has become a mainstay of the Czech national team.
Two years ago, they could not even get a million euro offer for Tomas Chory, while this summer Plzen sold him to Slavia for three million euros and incorporated more young players.
What's more, the club have had several interesting prospects on their roster. In the summer, Robin Hranac left the club, where he worked his way up to the national team in one season, after Hoffenheim paid €11 million for him.
Another big sale is expected to be midfielder Pavel Sulc, defender Sampson Dweh is doing great and Prince Adu excels in the attack.
The club has another asset on the sidelines in Rafiu Durosinmi, whose transfer to Eintracht Frankfurt for €11 million last autumn fell through. Many other youngsters are already peeking into the first team and their inclusion is only a matter of time.
In general, the club is betting on footballers from Africa - only Karvina (six) has more of them on their roster in the Czech League. The average age of the summer reinforcements, excluding returning players, was 21.5 years, which is two years younger than a year ago.
In contrast, Sparta brought in much more experienced players; their average age is 23.9 years. Plzen's thinking has changed entirely. As an example, they have attracted Jan Ricka, who worked for many years as a scout for Manchester City, to the sports department.
But don't look for a progressive youngster in the mould of Julian Nagelsman as a coach, as has become fashionable in the last decade. Plzen are led by the oldest coach in the league; Miroslav Koubek is 73 years old. Incredibly, he only started coaching the Czech first league when he was almost 50.
"Don't look at age. He's one of the few Czech coaches who tries to move with the times and is interested in modern trends," people around the club will tell you. He watches European teams, enjoys tactics and has no problem with modern technology.
However, it is said that he will only last two or three seasons at the club because the players often struggle to get on with him, his style doesn't suit everyone and he can be forceful and strict, but he has a track record of unquestionable success.
He is in his third stint as coach at Plzen, having won his first and only championship title with the club in 2014/15. He was soon sacked because he failed to make the summer European qualifiers and things weren't going well between him and some of the players.
He returned six years later to get a second chance. Last season he led Plzen to third place and the gap to first-placed Sparta was an abysmal 17 points at the end of May.
Today, however, his side are six points ahead of them in the table halfway through the regular season. In addition, Plzen have now gone 25 games in the European competitions without defeat in regular time.
Their last defeat, if we do not take into account the loss in extra time in the spring to Fiorentina, is still remembered in Plzen as the Champions League match against Barcelona on November 1st, 2022.
In the current edition of the Europa League, Plzen are fighting for a place in the top eight, which would send them straight to the second knockout round. They will next face Manchester United at home this week. Plzen will go into the match as an underdog, but that is exactly what suits them.
They are also extremely strong at home. They beat Real Sociedad sensationally, whose squad value was higher than the sum of the prices of the squads of Slavia, Sparta, and even all the teams from the entire Czech League combined.
Plzen are characterised by their high-energy football - their pace of play is astonishing. In the Europa League, for example, they are the second-best team for that. Their ability to advance quickly to the opponent's goal in metres per second is admirable. Yet they are not simply a counterattacking team.
Koubek is doing a very good job for the club. Would you fire a man like that? Unlikely, but not everyone thinks like Adolf Sadek. Speculation is rife that after the season he will thank Koubek for his service and go for the 23-year-younger Martin Svedik, who has a very good reputation in the Czech Republic.
The Plzen boss wants to give the team a new impetus. To move it forward again. To try to put the pressure on Sparta and Slavia again and go for the title, which perfectly describes Sadek's character: never give up without a fight and go full throttle to the very end.