At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.23 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anorthosis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Anorthosis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Olivier Mbaizo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Anorthosis now know that too.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Babacar Dione. 2‑0 against AE Kition, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pafos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Position 3, 36 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pafos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pafos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Pafos will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
5 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.
Jay Gorter 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edinson Chávez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Pafos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.65 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pafos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jonás Miszczuk provided it, and the 8.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.27 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Bruno has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pafos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.34 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edinson Chávez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
26 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Anorthosis moved on, Bruno reports back to Pafos, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Ken Sema 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.
Marked 8.71 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
David Goldar 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.
Dani Silva 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alexandre Brito is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
In brief
SquadWords at Pafos training over how hard people work
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pafos can pretend not to have heard.
Dani Silva 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.
The phone has started ringing about Mons Bassouamina again, and this time the name on the line is Agia Napa. Pafos are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Goldar is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Roman Bezus is 35 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pafos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
David Goldar 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Pafos are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Aldair Arnedo is 34 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Pafos has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pafos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jay Gorter is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nikolas Ioannou has his answer from Pafos; what he does with it is the next window’s story.