The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Levadiakos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gregorio Rodríguez 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.
Hakim Sahabo 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.” Christos Giakoumakis after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
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 Levadiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Levadiakos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Olympiacos in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Enis Çokaj scored, was marked 7.66, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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 Levadiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
17 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout19 Oct 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Christos Giakoumakis to a room that had heard them before.
Asteras next, and one man in the Levadiakos dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$4.1M settles it between the clubs for Ondrej Duda
Al-Ettifaq have accepted the money. What AEK do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Union Brescia waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
AEK asked and Asteras said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Lorenzo Pirola 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 fee is $740.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. AEK drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Asteras paid $1.1M and Levadiakos took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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.
Levadiakos asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levadiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have shaken hands with AEK; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $884.0K — a club that wants Tasos Donis enough to be asked twice.
Levadiakos asked and AEK said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gregorio Rodríguez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexandru Pantea 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 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.