“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 The request is on a desk at SC Bastia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around SC Bastia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Basil Tuma has agreed terms with SM Caen for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Arnór Valur Ágústsson 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 Mikayil Faye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at SC Bastia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SC Bastia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 The request is on a desk at SC Bastia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around SC Bastia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” SC Bastia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shafiq Nandja was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon SC Bastia had all but put away. RC Lens will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
“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 The request is on a desk at SC Bastia, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Andreas Georgiou is living that version at SC Bastia, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at SC Bastia 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 SC Bastia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals in one match, Basil Tuma on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of SC Bastia and Angers SCO.
Stade de Reims will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Saliou Diop has pre-agreed a move to SC Bastia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Loan watch24 Dec 2035
Hugo Wentges’s loan is measured in nothing happening
14 clean sheets from 19 appearances at Clermont Foot. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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 SC Bastia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around SC Bastia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SC Bastia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and SC Bastia know it.
FC Metz will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Lourenço Silva has pre-agreed a move to SC Bastia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
0‑1 to AS Saint-Etienne, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 Nov 2035
Words at SC Bastia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shafiq Nandja 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.
A brace, and Basil Tuma takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Basil Tuma provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around SC Bastia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
FC Lorient will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Haythem Atbi has pre-agreed a move to SC Bastia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shafiq Nandja was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abbati Abdullahi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around SC Bastia 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 SC Bastia can pretend not to have heard.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Owen Karsenti has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Ozoh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Max Williamsen 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation SC Bastia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at SC Bastia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at SC Bastia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mads Eikrem Myklebust has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
SC Bastia asked and SM Caen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
AJ Auxerre will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nessim Rahmani has pre-agreed a move to SC Bastia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad17 Sep 2035
Words at SC Bastia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anthony Sifflet 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and SC Bastia know it.
Kevin Kandem damages knee ligaments — 135 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 135 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FCSB have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Two goals and a mark of 9.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FCSB 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.
In brief
Player ratingsUp for the corner, and Julian Brandes delivers — 7.94
78 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Kevin Kandem: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FCSB 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 FCSB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Andrei Borza 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.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FCSB lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FCSB 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 FCSB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Andrei Borza 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at FCSB, and 6 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
The words a physio says slowly. 137 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrei Borza 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.
Samuel Grygar 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad16 Oct 2034
7 new faces, and FCSB are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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 Ştefan Târnovanu is on it.
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kévin Sitou is living that version at FCSB, and it tends to show in the first month.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FCSB they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
7.74, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FCSB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between FCSB and Farul Constanța, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
CFR Cluj will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Jesús Vázquez has pre-agreed a move to FCSB, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Josip Brundić at his very best
127 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Dauda Iddrisa has, at FCSB, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FCSB is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrei Borza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FCSB will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FCSB people have started saying his name in the past tense.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $875.9K of what FCSB paid for Koen Jansen is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Diego Sánchez has just signed for FCSB, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom4 Sep 2034
Deadline passes with 32 signed and 34 gone
That is the business done at FCSB 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.
Maro Katinić 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FCSB will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Marius Burca had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $238.3K — a club that wants Antonio Suciu enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to FK Csíkszereda this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mikkel Hope has just signed for FCSB, and for once the answer mattered.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrei Borza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Koen Jansen had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FCSB have lost him in all but the paperwork.
He is going to Arsenal, the club has $23.6M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FCSB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Koen Jansen is on it.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at FCSB that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.