The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cracovia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Sayfallah Ltaief 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.
Squad3 Mar 2031
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cracovia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Rafał Augustyniak has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mihael Mlinarić provided it, and the 9.21 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cracovia can pretend not to have heard.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Cracovia had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Darko Marjanović will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Dijon Kameri 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.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cracovia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
6 goals in one match, Kahveh Zahiroleslam on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Cracovia and Gornik Zabrze.
A 4‑2 win over Gornik Zabrze, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.12 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cracovia can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cracovia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ensar Arslan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsKahveh Zahiroleslam was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Two goals and a mark of 9.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings21 Oct 2030
A brace, and Dijon Kameri takes the afternoon — 8.46
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dijon Kameri provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Cracovia and Piast in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
6 goals in one match, Dijon Kameri on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Cracovia and Legia.
Legia made Cracovia work for it, but the scoreboard read 4‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
Gornik Zabrze will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Cracovia were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kahveh Zahiroleslam provided it, and the 9.81 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 9.15 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ensar Arslan 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Konrad Cymerys reports back to Cracovia with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Sayfallah Ltaief 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ensar Arslan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Cracovia have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Sayfallah Ltaief 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Emiliano Zambrano has, at Cracovia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad15 Jul 2030
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dominik Baumgartner 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.
At 25 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.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Kahveh Zahiroleslam obliged against Lechia. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Cracovia.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Cracovia scored in the 113th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Position 2, 62 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Cracovia have had the benefit of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cracovia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sebastian Walukiewicz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dominik Baumgartner and Cracovia agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bence Varga is living that version at Cracovia, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Radosław Murawski has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Cracovia have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Martin Minchev is on it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cracovia told Bence Varga something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cracovia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Nobody at Cracovia will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dijon Kameri signs something — a contract at Cracovia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cracovia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mariusz Stępiński has written the date down.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Cracovia has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Mar 2030
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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 manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Martin Minchev is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dijon Kameri signs something — a contract at Cracovia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Cracovia. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Cracovia that is a harder question to answer.
In brief
The dugoutMarcin Cebula knocks on the manager’s door
BoardroomThe Cracovia production line keeps running
Position 2, 45 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.
“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 Cracovia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Dec 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Dijon Kameri’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cracovia.
Player ratings10 Dec 2029
Dijon Kameri was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oskar Lachowicz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
3‑1 against Wisla Krakow, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cracovia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sebastian Walukiewicz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
With 4 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
0‑3. Olympiacos play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cracovia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cracovia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Cracovia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oskar Lachowicz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mihael Mlinarić provided it, and the 9.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Paolo Gardoni will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sayfallah Ltaief 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 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.
Marked 8.57 — 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Cracovia pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Cracovia dressing room in a hurry
67 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cracovia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Robert Gumny will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
Cracovia have made the call to Dinamo Bucharest. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
89 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cracovia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cracovia can pretend not to have heard.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Flavio Sulejmani is living that version at Cracovia, and it tends to show in the first month.
Otar Kakabadze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cracovia told Flavio Sulejmani something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cracovia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Olaf Stańczuk has agreed terms with Zaglebie for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
17 clean sheets across a season, and the one award on the pitch nobody else is eligible for. Most keepers get through a whole career without a year like it.
Squad28 May 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Beno Selan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Karol Świderski 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Cracovia will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad7 May 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Walukiewicz 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.
Zaglebie will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. František Plach has pre-agreed a move to Cracovia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Cracovia told Mihael Mlinarić something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nobody at Cracovia will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Cracovia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 2, 62 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.
Sayfallah Ltaief and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karol Świderski 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 manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Dijon Kameri is on it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cracovia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Oskar Lachowicz will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cracovia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sonny Finch has just signed for Cracovia, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Words at Cracovia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karol Świderski 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Tomasz Loska has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Cracovia have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Nobody at Cracovia will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cracovia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutEmil Hansson knocks on the manager’s door