Marked for Wiktor Niewiarowski
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Jun 2029
Pressure builds in the Botosani boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad4 Jun 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botosani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Dmytro Solomchenko has, at Botosani, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Boardroom4 Jun 2029
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rijad Sadiku 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 targets4 Jun 2029
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad4 Jun 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Thomas Sanglier and Botosani agree another 3 years.
Transfer targets4 Jun 2029
A loan move for Renato Pantalon is in the works
Botosani have made the call to FCSB. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market4 Jun 2029
He is 20, and nobody at Botosani signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market18 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
7 saves: Béla Fejér was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.83, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Rijad Sadiku 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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Alexandru Ţigănaşu 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.
Match16 Dec 2028
CFR Cluj made Botosani work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces18 Dec 2028
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.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.46, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ovidiu Burca on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings6 Nov 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
Dollard Wandji: 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.” Botosani have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market6 Nov 2028
Only the photograph left for Lenn Copier
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lenn Copier will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Botosani the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Rijad Sadiku 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.
Match4 Nov 2028
It finished 2‑1, and it was Andrei Dumitru’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Botosani.
The terraces6 Nov 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrei Dumitru 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.
Market6 Nov 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Botosani, another week without a signature from Zoran Mitrov.
Squad6 Nov 2028
A falling-out at Botosani
Lenn Copier and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout31 Jan 2028
Murray Campbell: 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.” Botosani have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad31 Jan 2028
A row about effort at Botosani
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mykola Kovtaliuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets31 Jan 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words exchanged at Botosani
Alexandru Roşca 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.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Both jobs done by Rijad Sadiku — 7.48
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 7.48, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad31 Jan 2028
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
The team sheet said everything about Mihai Bordeianu
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Mihai Bordeianu.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
Aldo Martano 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.
In brief
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Transfer targets
A loan move for Pablo Ortiz is in the works
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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Market
Ylane Cherif is free to find somewhere else
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match17 Jan 2028
Every point is an argument now for Botosani
Position 15 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match15 Jan 2028
The drought breaks for Botosani
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Petrolul Ploiești were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad17 Jan 2028
A row about effort at Botosani
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mykola Kovtaliuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
Botosani asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad17 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botosani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
He is 19 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.
Market17 Jan 2028
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Botosani have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match15 Jan 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aldo Martano. 1‑0 against Petrolul Ploiești, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2028
Sheffield Wednesday have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.