Marked for Andreas Kkostis
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Jan 2032
Successful dribbles: 44. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Jan 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jason Kastanos
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aris lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Jan 2032
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Ermis waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Aris is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings26 Jan 2032
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.29 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market26 Jan 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market26 Jan 2032
Aris say no — this time
The offer from AE Kition for Daniel Ferrão 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.
Squad26 Jan 2032
Tempers go at Aris
Gédéon Kalulu 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.
Match24 Jan 2032
Aris get the job done against Ermis
A 3‑2 win over Ermis, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad26 Jan 2032
Words at Aris training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Opoku Sarfo 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Oct 2031
Jason Kastanos damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Market13 Oct 2031
Santiago Vivas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aris they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market13 Oct 2031
Iván Aguilar hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aris can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Oct 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aris this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Words at Aris training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Opoku Sarfo 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.
Squad13 Oct 2031
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Aris are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout13 Oct 2031
Jaden Montnor has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Aris will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout13 Oct 2031
“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.
The dugout13 Oct 2031
news_b_reunited_with_his_manager
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Jul 2031
57 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aris lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market14 Jul 2031
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Aris people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market14 Jul 2031
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Tempers go at Aris
Gédéon Kalulu 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.
Transfer targets14 Jul 2031
Aris asked and Pafos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Gilfranck Peto is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Transfer targets14 Jul 2031
Apollon have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout14 Jul 2031
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.