The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. BATE have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Belshina had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Add another name to the list: Andranik have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mai Kolbl. The answer from BATE has not changed — yet.
Yvann Titi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Minel Kujraković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. BATE will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around BATE people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Moscow have kept their man, and BATE go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason BATE will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Preslav Bachev 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 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: Preslav Bachev. 3‑1 against Torpedo-BelAZ, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BATE have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Yvann Titi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Toumani Diagouraga 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 new man at BATE has worked with Maxim Autko before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sanyika Bergtop will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Daniel Mikołajewski is living that version at BATE, and it tends to show in the first month.
$950.0K was the most the club would pay and Dinamo Minsk were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
$550.0K on the table at Dinamo Brest. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Yvann Titi 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
Transfer targetsAn offer of $140.0K for Sergei Noyok
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Torino will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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 7.49 for the rest of it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Torino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Torino will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ante Bilobrk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Dean de Kraaij has agreed terms with Pescara for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Simon Harrasser 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.
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Leander Skammelsrud scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Mikołajewski will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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 Torino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Guillaume Gonzalez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Simon Harrasser 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 Apr 2035
Words at Torino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristo 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Torino will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Torino, another week without a signature from Pontus Eriksson.
“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; Torino are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Dean de Kraaij is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
16 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Mikołajewski will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Torino, another week without a signature from Taylor Gardner-Hickman.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torino can pretend not to have heard.
7.59, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Guillaume Gonzalez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Simon Harrasser 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.
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.
Empoli will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Toby Kompany has pre-agreed a move to Torino, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
A 2‑0 win over Virtus Entella, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.23 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Torino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 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.
The name of Gianni Peirano has come up in conversations Torino were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Torino asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Torino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom5 Feb 2035
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 8 gone
That is the business done at Torino until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Simon Harrasser 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torino have kept their man, and Crotone go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Marked 8.44 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Crotone will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Pietro Piazza 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.
Torino asked and Napoli said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Position 2, 40 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Torino people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Torino, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Torino have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Add another name to the list: Foggia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gianni Peirano. The answer from Torino has not changed — yet.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Parma, and it is not being withdrawn.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Daniel Mikołajewski has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Parma have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Riyad Bounedjah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Torino have had the benefit of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Mikołajewski will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Torino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.