Marked for Joonas Koski
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Feb 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ušće they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom12 Feb 2029
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Dimitrije Novićević has agreed terms with OFK Beograd for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad12 Feb 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ušće this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Feb 2029
A move Joonas Koski would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Joonas Koski is living that version at Ušće, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets12 Feb 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. OFK Vršac have kept their man, and Ušće go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Words at Ušće training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sofian Bouzian 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.
Match10 Feb 2029
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout12 Feb 2029
The manager makes an example of Zarija Lambulić
“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.
Market12 Feb 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces14 Feb 2028
The mood at SalPa has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad14 Feb 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Thomas Agyiri
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. SalPa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Feb 2028
The unthinkable, invoiced: Ermal Rrustemi sold
Haka arrived with $61.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The terraces14 Feb 2028
Ermal Rrustemi has gone, the accounts have $61.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Market14 Feb 2028
Joonas Koski 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 SalPa can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
Everything agreed with KuPS, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words exchanged at SalPa
Sadat Seidu 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.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
A loan move for Akseli Puukko is in the works
SalPa have made the call to KuPS. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
A loan enquiry to FF Jaro: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match29 Nov 2027
SalPa are in real trouble now
Position 10, 12 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad29 Nov 2027
31 days out for Ami Karttila after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. SalPa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market29 Nov 2027
“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 SalPa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Tempers go at SalPa
Severi Pöysä 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.
Boardroom29 Nov 2027
Belts tighten at SalPa
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at SalPa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Topias Dementjeff 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces27 Sep 2027
The mood at SalPa has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at SalPa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Sep 2027
A falling-out at SalPa
Sadat Seidu and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market23 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SalPa can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at SalPa 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
A falling-out at SalPa
Severi Pöysä and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. IF Gnistan have kept their man, and SalPa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at SalPa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Agyiri 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.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Diego Cedeno
“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 dugout23 Aug 2027
Thomas Agyiri knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at SalPa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at SalPa. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Market23 Aug 2027
SalPa spent the window trying to move Jasper Kostian on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Aug 2027
SalPa sink to position 10
12 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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.
Match9 Aug 2027
SalPa finish in position 10
12 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Isak Nyström, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Thomas Agyiri goes up and wins it — 7.43
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.43 for the rest of it.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
Joonas Koski: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” SalPa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match7 Aug 2027
SalPa end the wait against KTP
It had gone 8 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. SalPa have done the hard part with KuPS, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Thomas Agyiri and SalPa agree another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market21 Jun 2027
“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 SalPa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Tempers go at SalPa
Sadat Seidu 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.
Match19 Jun 2027
JIPPO take the points off SalPa
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Jun 2027
A row about effort at SalPa
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thomas Agyiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Looking ahead21 Jun 2027
A six-pointer for SalPa
TPS next, and both sides can do the sum. Win and the table looks different; lose and it looks the way everybody has been fearing.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Juha Sparv to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
Joonas Koski gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Sadat Seidu has to sit this one out
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. SalPa lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Looking ahead21 Jun 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Severi Pöysä’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and SalPa needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Apr 2027
Michael John breaks a bone — 47 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match24 Apr 2027
No end in sight to SalPa's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at SalPa has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at SalPa
Severi Pöysä 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.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. SalPa told Joonas Meura something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Juha Sparv: “We have to be better”
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad26 Apr 2027
A row about effort at SalPa
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reino Ruponen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Joonas Koski
“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.
Match24 Apr 2027
SalPa and TPS cancel each other out
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. TPS came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.