2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Michael will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Balzan escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Balzan are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Paulo Júnior 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Stefan Muscat after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Balzan have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Balzan would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Swieqi United go through and Balzan go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Balzan can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Paulo Júnior 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.
“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 Balzan 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Balzan can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Balzan will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Balzan close the window on a squad of their own making
12 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Balzan will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Balzan, another week without a signature from Jerryson Willie.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Dylan Ciappara 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Michael’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Balzan needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Balzan can pretend not to have heard.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Balzan 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 Balzan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Naxxar Lions have kept their man, and Balzan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Simon Zammit has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniel Calleja has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alan Busuttil has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Clive Tabone is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Balzan has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jake Engerer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Luis Gabriel 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Balzan, another week without a signature from Michael.
Balzan have made the call to Sliema Wanderers. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Balzan has been clear about where Joseph Zerafa stands, which is more than many ever get.