It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Matthew Bolaños 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Akpan Udoh 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. Matthew Bolaños 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mosta are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mosta can pretend not to have heard.
Matthew Bolaños 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.
In brief
SquadJoão Victor falls out with a teammate over standards
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 Mosta now know that too.
Matthew Bolaños 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 player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Matthew Bolaños will call it something else in private.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Mosta know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
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.
Arsen Galstyan 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. João Victor 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ivan Portelli is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Frank Brincat 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nicholas Fenech is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
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.
“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 Mosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Léo Fernandes again, and this time the name on the line is Zabbar St. Patrick. Mosta are listening politely and promising nothing.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Mosta will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Mosta, another week without a signature from Timothy Atamenwan.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Wisdom Magbisa has just signed for Mosta, and for once the answer mattered.
Pedro Cacho 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. Matthew Bolaños 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.