Marked for Isiaka Soukouna
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Oct 2028
14 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 61 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market9 Oct 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Vegalta Sendai, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Isiaka Soukouna: 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.” Vegalta Sendai have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad9 Oct 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 Vegalta Sendai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Emil Morgan gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Emil Morgan has just signed for Vegalta Sendai, and for once the answer mattered.
Match7 Oct 2028
3 matches without a goal for Vegalta Sendai
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Market9 Oct 2028
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Marked 4.82, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Jan 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Vegalta Sendai, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Jan 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Vegalta Sendai may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market31 Jan 2028
The offer from Sagan Tosu for Richard Harris 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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Isiaka Soukouna gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Isiaka Soukouna has just signed for Vegalta Sendai, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Ten Miyagi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vegalta Sendai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Vegalta Sendai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renji Matsui 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Aug 2027
Kilian Belazzoug damages knee ligaments — 36 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Adrien Thomasson 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad9 Aug 2027
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Market9 Aug 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Anthony Rouault has his answer from Stade Rennais; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market9 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Stade Rennais, another week without a signature from Ortwin De Wolf.