12 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Apolonia Fier this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Flavio Mecja 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.
The new man at Apolonia Fier has worked with Ersildjo Asllanaj before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
At 19 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.
9 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The new man at Apolonia Fier has worked with Ersildjo Asllanaj before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“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; Apolonia Fier are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Eslit Dervishi to a room that had heard them before.
Serxho Prendi 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.
In brief
SquadApolonia Fier are still strangers to each other
Fatmir Prengaj 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Apolonia Fier can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody at Apolonia Fier is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rimal Haxhiu signs something — a contract at Apolonia Fier or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Beaten 1‑4 by Kukësi, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Oltjan Haremi 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.
Beaten 4 times, 4 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Apolonia Fier will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
0‑3 to Korabi Peshkopi, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oltjan Haremi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad14 Sep 2026
19 new faces, and Apolonia Fier 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Serxho Prendi 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.
Akinola Adesokan is 19, and Apolonia Fier 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Apolonia Fier can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 21 arrived, 28 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The phone has started ringing about Ilvius Murati again, and this time the name on the line is Naftan. Apolonia Fier are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Apolonia Fier this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Gresild Lika’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Apolonia Fier needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.
Apolonia Fier opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Xhesild Maliqi stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Apolonia Fier lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ersi Kapo had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fatmir Prengaj 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. Tarxien Rainbows have kept their man, and Apolonia Fier go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Oltjan Haremi 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gresild Lika signs something — a contract at Apolonia Fier or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Oltjan Haremi on the training pitch