It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnik Surdulica this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriele Bellodi 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Milan Dimitrijevic and Radnik Surdulica agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Radnik Surdulica 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.
In brief
Boardroom90% of the income goes out in wages at Radnik Surdulica
Ekaitz Jiménez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pedro Empis 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Vojvodina defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Radnik Surdulica is running low.
Mahmudu Bajo 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Radnik Surdulica can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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 Radnik Surdulica, and it is not being withdrawn.
Mahmudu Bajo 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.
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Radnik Surdulica lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Ekaitz Jiménez 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
SquadMahmudu Bajo falls out with a teammate over standards