Marked for Jonatan Lima
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Feb 2027
“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.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Antonio Salado 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 Feb 2027
6 new faces, and Egaleo 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Egaleo are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market15 Feb 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aleksandr Šapovalov signs something — a contract at Egaleo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market15 Feb 2027
A season-long audition: Panserraikos still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Egaleo's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Kostas Tabas: 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.” Egaleo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Egaleo
Spyros Risvanis and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Salado 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.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Egaleo asked and Panetolikos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“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 Egaleo know it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Jonatan Lima wants one last season at home
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Egaleo know now that the thought has arrived.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market8 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with David Crespo’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market8 Feb 2027
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Spyros Abartzidis is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and PAS Giannina waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: AEK keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Egaleo asked and Panetolikos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Antonio Navas 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.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Nuno Silva
“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.
Match9 Jan 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Antonio Salado’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Egaleo.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Salado 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 dugout14 Dec 2026
Nuno Silva gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match12 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad14 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Nick Perc has to sit this one out
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. Egaleo lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The formation has left Jonatan Lima behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Egaleo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market14 Dec 2026
Egaleo bring in an old head
Jonatan Lima 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.
Looking ahead14 Dec 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Angelos Zioulis’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Egaleo needing him to play as if none of it matters.