Marked for Theo Robinson
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Oct 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Leiknir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Oct 2032
Bogdan Bogdanovic 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.
Squad18 Oct 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adam Örn Arnarson, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match29 Sep 2032
Leiknir out of the cup
Keflavik ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
Crisis meeting at Leiknir
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.
Squad4 Oct 2032
173 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad4 Oct 2032
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Leiknir may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad4 Oct 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Leiknir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Oct 2032
The one award nobody else on the pitch can win goes to Ólafur Íshólm Ólafsson, on 16 clean sheets across the season. Keepers wait a career for a season like it.
Player ratings4 Oct 2032
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market4 Oct 2032
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Leiknir know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Jun 2032
Leiknir march on in the cup
Valur are out and Leiknir go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Boardroom7 Jun 2032
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom7 Jun 2032
The Leiknir board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad7 Jun 2032
Đorđe Vladisavljević 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.
Player ratings7 Jun 2032
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings7 Jun 2032
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad7 Jun 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Khalid Hazazi and Leiknir agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Jun 2032
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.
Squad7 Jun 2032
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match8 May 2032
16 matches without a win for Leiknir
The run now stands at 16, and the questions being asked around Leiknir are no longer polite ones.
Squad10 May 2032
Ólafur Íshólm Ólafsson 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.
Squad10 May 2032
Words at Leiknir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bogdan Bogdanovic 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.
Squad10 May 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mikael Gudmundsson and Leiknir agree another 3 years.
Player ratings10 May 2032
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 May 2032
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom12 Apr 2032
Pressure builds in the Leiknir boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad12 Apr 2032
Đorđe Vladisavljević 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.
Squad12 Apr 2032
Words at Leiknir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bogdan Bogdanovic 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.