“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Anorthosis have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
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.
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 Nicolás Andereggen is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nemanja Tošić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Anorthosis lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Anorthosis know it.
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.
Nobody at Anorthosis 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.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Andreas Chrysostomou decided nobody was going anywhere. Ethnikos Achnas had no time left to answer.
6 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sim Thandi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Anorthosis the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Anorthosis have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Aitor Córdoba 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Anorthosis have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Clifford Aboagye 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.83, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Anorthosis asked and AEL said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Anorthosis will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Gabriel Furtado 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Anorthosis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Babacar Dione 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Valentinos Merkis could afford to be generous.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The dugoutJairo is still being punished for one mistake
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Anorthosis will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Kostakis Artymatas has his answer from Anorthosis; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Babacar Dione 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kostakis Artymatas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ethnikos Achnas next, and one man in the Anorthosis dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Anorthosis 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
Omonoia Aradippou next, and one man in the Anorthosis dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
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.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Squad12 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Anorthosis 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.
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 Marios Ilia is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Marios Ilia’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Anorthosis needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Anorthosis. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Babacar Dione trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Anorthosis has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Aitor Córdoba 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 club 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 it has been tried.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Babacar Dione was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.