An order from above at Voluntari: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Josip Brundić 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 Metod Jurhar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Voluntari game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Mezőkövesd runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Voluntari, another week without a signature from Alexandru Şuteu.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ionuţ Cercel is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Djordan Mongo-Mpeho decided nobody was going anywhere. Metaloglobus Bucharest had no time left to answer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Voluntari can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Ionuţ Cercel, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.77
A mark of 7.77 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Lovro Cvek 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Samuel Quainoo has, at Voluntari, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Metod Jurhar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Voluntari asked and FK Csíkszereda said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Two goals and a mark of 9.00 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ionuţ Cercel did not need any: 7.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matko Babić. 3‑1 against ASA Târgu Mureș, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ionuţ Cercel did not need any: 7.63, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Owen Johnson is living that version at Voluntari, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lovro Cvek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matko Babić. 1‑0 against Concordia Chiajna, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Voluntari people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Ionuţ Cercel, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.25
A mark of 8.25 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Up for the corner, and Diogo Mendes delivers — 7.51
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Diogo Mendes scored, was marked 7.51, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Voluntari 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.
Lovro Cvek 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drilon Hazrollaj 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vlašim have kept their man, and Voluntari go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Voluntari have done the hard part with Tranmere Rovers, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Voluntari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drilon Hazrollaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Voluntari asked and ASA Târgu Mureș said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Ionuţ Cercel 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Voluntari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lovro Cvek 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
It needed Alan Ovelar to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Concordia Chiajna, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad22 Nov 2027
6 new faces, and Voluntari 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Voluntari lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Oțelul Galați go through and Voluntari go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Voluntari have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Ionuţ Cercel, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
George Merloi 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.
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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Stefan Hagi left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Lovro Cvek's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Lovro Cvek 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A 1‑0 win over Metalul Buzău, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Voluntari know which stage they are at.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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.
31 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. FCSB will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Darius Olaru 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.
Nobody at FCSB 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FCSB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
55 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.
71 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filip Benković 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.
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.
6 goals in 26 games at Hermannstadt — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at FCSB updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at FCSB. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Daniel Bîrligea’s exile
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Tino Kadewere
SquadRisto Radunović is training like a man with a point to make
The words a physio says slowly. 82 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Filip Benković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Juri Cisotti is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matei Popa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Ofri Arad’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
89 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.
71 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Darius Olaru 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filip Benković 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FCSB, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FCSB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Dennis Politic’s exile
Position 21 and 34 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Câmpulung Muscel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fady Khatir 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 Lorenzo Biliboc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Gloria Bistrița left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout5 Apr 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Cosmin Mitrita to a room that had heard them before.