The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Adriano Neciosup will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atlanta United FC the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Emmanuel Latte Lath 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. Paulo Díaz 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.
Justin Howard is 18, and Atlanta United FC have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Atlanta United FC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The words a physio says slowly. 124 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Atlanta United FC is running low.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atlanta United FC is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Adriano Neciosup 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.
Emmanuel Latte Lath 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atlanta United FC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Atlanta United FC will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.