It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergiu Hanca 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.
“Another season, another badge, another dressing room to win over. I would like one pre-season at Voluntari where somebody actually looks at me.” He belongs to Steaua Bucharest until the spell ends; the argument is with the club that owns him.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
6 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Vlad Pop 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad25 Oct 2027
David Kiki 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bogdan Petre. 2‑0 against Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match23 Oct 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Voluntari. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
“I watch every Voluntari game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Steaua Bucharest runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 Voluntari, and it is not being withdrawn.
Vlad Pop 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Kiki 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Voluntari have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” David Kiki commits to Voluntari for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Kiki 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.
Sergiu Hanca 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Bogdan Petre has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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.
A brace, and Albert Jarcă takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Albert Jarcă provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Vlad Pop 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Piast have kept their man, and Voluntari go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A 2‑1 win over Metalul Buzău, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Albert Jarcă has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergiu Hanca 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.
“I did not go to Universitatea Craiova to sit and watch. I want to come back to Voluntari and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Voluntari can pretend not to have heard.
Vlad Pop 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Lovro Cvek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Sergiu Chiriches left the room before anybody could ask which.
Voluntari asked and Olympic Charleroi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Owen Hampson and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lovro Cvek 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 dugout9 Aug 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Sergiu Chiriches left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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 Voluntari, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
An order from above at Voluntari: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Vlad Pop 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
David Kiki 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Voluntari has been clear about where Alexandru Gîţ stands, which is more than many ever get.
Silas Hald is 20, and Voluntari have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
A brace, and Matko Babić takes the afternoon — 8.67
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Matko Babić provided it, and the 8.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Voluntari people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Bogdan Petre did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Olimpia Satu Mare for George Merloi was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Vlad Pop 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matko Babić. 3‑1 against Olimpia Satu Mare, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Brest have kept their man, and Voluntari go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Olimpia Satu Mare waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Voluntari is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from CSC Șelimbăr for Doru Andrei was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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 Voluntari, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dragos Chiriches will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Voluntari the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Owen Hampson 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvin Schieb 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.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sergiu Chiriches after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Alexandru Gîţ will call it something else in private.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ouparine Djoco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Ebuka Okeke, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
A season average of 7.07 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Voluntari know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
13 combined actions and 6.98. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Voluntari will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ebuka Okeke did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Vlad Pop 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Metod Jurhar, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvin Schieb 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 dugout12 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sergiu Chiriches, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Voluntari will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
A season average of 7.07 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Voluntari know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Ebuka Okeke 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.
Corvinul Hunedoara left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sergiu Chiriches to a room that had heard them before.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Marvin Schieb 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Voluntari have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Voluntari know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Voluntari, another week without a signature from Vlad Pop.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvin Schieb was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
George Merloi 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and Voluntari 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.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Voluntari lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
CSM Reșița will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Voluntari were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The offer from Dinamo Bucharest for Doru Andrei was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Vlad Pop 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.
The name of Mihael Onişa has come up in conversations Voluntari were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
A mark of 8.01 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Voluntari will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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 Voluntari, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Remus Guţea did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Remus Guţea has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matko Babić. 1‑0 against CS Dinamo Bucharest, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Chindia Târgoviște, and it could have been more.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Ebuka Okeke, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.21
A mark of 8.21 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Vlad Pop 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Chindia Târgoviște were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sergiu Balasa 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. Ianis Puscas 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. Stefan Bancu is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Daniel Marin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Ebuka Okeke 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.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Voluntari has been clear about where Radu Crişan stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Dávid Sigér 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.
15 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.
“I watch every Voluntari game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Petrolul Ploiești runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sergiu Chiriches after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Vlad Pop 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dávid Sigér was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
15 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Voluntari, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“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 Voluntari, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Voluntari close the window on a squad of their own making
16 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.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dávid Sigér 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Voluntari will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Daniel Dumbravanu has come out of that comparison in the side, and Voluntari have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Voluntari, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Voluntari asked and AZ said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
12 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.
Voluntari have made the call to Accrington Stanley. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Voluntari asked and Accrington Stanley said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matko Babić. 2‑1 against CSC Dumbrăvița, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
George Merloi 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.
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Marvin Schieb 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 loan enquiry to Slovacko: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Sergiu Chiriches, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.95 for the rest of it.
The offer from Petrolul Ploiești for Eduard Chioveanu was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Voluntari had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Skonto, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari 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. Red Bull Salzburg have kept their man, and Voluntari go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matko Babić. 2‑0 against Politehnica Iași, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvin Schieb was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Hugo Weckmann is in the works
Up for the corner, and Mihael Onişa delivers — 7.96
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mihael Onişa scored, was marked 7.96, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Voluntari asked and Botosani said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A 1‑0 win over Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.