4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at FC Argeș has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Xian Emmers 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Argeș this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 10, 18 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
A 1‑1 draw with Petrolul Ploiești leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Nicusor Mitrita chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Leard Sadriu is on it.
Ricardo Matos 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nicusor Mitrita after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at FC Argeș training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Guilherme Garutti 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 touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Petrolul Ploiești next, and one man in the FC Argeș dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
At 21 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Elvir Koljić signs something — a contract at FC Argeș or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.