Marked for Turendran Kumar
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Suva waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tailevu Naitasiri is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Taniela Rakariva 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Abhishek Deo 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Taniela Rakariva has moved up it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
Taniela Rakariva and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Aug 2026
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
Lautoka go through and Tailevu Naitasiri 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Tailevu Naitasiri people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad24 Aug 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tailevu Naitasiri can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Tailevu Naitasiri training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abhishek Deo 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.
Squad24 Aug 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 Tailevu Naitasiri this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Shivneet Sami has come up in conversations Tailevu Naitasiri were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Abhishek Deo
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Nasinu, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
What a way to start for Ushant Lal — 7.22
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.22 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Abhishek Deo 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nadi have kept their man, and Tailevu Naitasiri go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Tailevu Naitasiri have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.63 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Tailevu Naitasiri had the best player on the pitch.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Marlon Goundar could afford to be generous.
Market17 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Tailevu Naitasiri will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Iosefo Verevou and Tailevu Naitasiri agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Abhishek Deo 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.
Squad3 Aug 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 Tailevu Naitasiri this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Shivneet Sami has come up in conversations Tailevu Naitasiri were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Aug 2026
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Iosefo Verevou’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.