Marked for Luca Andrada
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market30 Oct 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match28 Oct 2028
The wait goes on for AEL Larisa
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Dirk Rasing: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEL Larisa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Erick Cabaco in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Oct 2028
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match28 Oct 2028
PAOK left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
Nobody could get near Joel Roca
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Loan watch30 Oct 2028
“I watch every AEL Larisa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ordabasy runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match27 Sep 2028
OFI ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market2 Oct 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at AEL Larisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Davíð Kristján Ólafsson and AEL Larisa agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; AEL Larisa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Erick Cabaco in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match30 Sep 2028
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Loan watch2 Oct 2028
“I watch every AEL Larisa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Ordabasy runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The terraces2 Oct 2028
The spotlight tightens on Erick Cabaco
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match2 Sep 2028
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Apostolis Christopoulos decided nobody was going anywhere. Panserraikos had no time left to answer.
Market4 Sep 2028
Joel Roca wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at AEL Larisa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Erick Cabaco was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad4 Sep 2028
A move Romelu Januzaj would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Romelu Januzaj is living that version at AEL Larisa, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match2 Sep 2028
Panserraikos made AEL Larisa work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Emanuel Alarcón and AEL Larisa agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The terraces4 Sep 2028
The crowd has taken to Joel Roca
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market7 Aug 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEL Larisa can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad7 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Aug 2028
At 34 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad7 Aug 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Babacar Djitté Cissé and AEL Larisa agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market7 Aug 2028
AEL Larisa bring in an old head
Fran Cifuentes is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom24 Jul 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at AEL Larisa
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at AEL Larisa is running low.
Market24 Jul 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at AEL Larisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Apostolis Christopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEL Larisa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market15 May 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEL Larisa can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 May 2028
Apostolis Christopoulos was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 May 2028
Francisco Ortega falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad15 May 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; AEL Larisa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Loan watch15 May 2028
“I watch every AEL Larisa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sochi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad15 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Luca Andrada, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match27 Mar 2028
21 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market27 Mar 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at AEL Larisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad27 Mar 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.