23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CS Tunari lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CS Tunari can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CS Tunari can pretend not to have heard.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at CS Tunari can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Carlos Casas 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.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. CS Tunari know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The dugout22 Apr 2030
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 Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Sebastian Bergier 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Universitatea Craiova have kept their man, and Oțelul Galați go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Words at Oțelul Galați training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Marques 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CS Tunari will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The offer from Oțelul Galați for Rodrigo Marques 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CS Tunari will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 CS Tunari, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Rodrigo Marques, marked 7.72, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leverton Pierre 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.
At 22 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.
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.
8 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and CSC Dumbrăvița were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CS Tunari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.25 — 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.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leverton Pierre 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 gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
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.
Position 21 and 8 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CS Tunari can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Carlos Casas 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Politehnica Iași in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CS Tunari know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leverton Pierre 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 CS Tunari, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Carlos Casas 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and CS Tunari know it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CS Tunari will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CS Tunari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
CS Tunari asked and Universitatea Cluj said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $20.2M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
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.
CS Tunari interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
0‑3 against FK Csíkszereda, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. CS Tunari have done the hard part with FCSB, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Farul Constanța have kept their man, and CS Tunari go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CS Tunari can pretend not to have heard.
Everything agreed with Oțelul Galați, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leverton Pierre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Petrolul Ploiești have kept their man, and CS Tunari go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
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 0‑1 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
CS Tunari have made the call to Gloria Bistrița. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CS Tunari can pretend not to have heard.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
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.
CS Tunari have made the call to UTA Arad. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“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 CS Tunari, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. CS Tunari have done the hard part with Oțelul Galați, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
A loan enquiry to Farul Constanța: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bogdan Tănase trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation CS Tunari are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“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; CS Tunari are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Petar Katalinić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 May 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Zakir 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.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Lukáš Holík is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Position 21 on 18 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Petar Katalinić 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 Alexandru Tîrlea was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout21 May 2029
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Marius Mihaila to a room that had heard them before.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
“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 CS Tunari, and it is not being withdrawn.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ties Brouwer has, at CS Tunari, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leverton Pierre 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.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. CS Tunari know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 113% of everything CS Tunari earn
16 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Petar Katalinić 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.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Tîrlea 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.
At 22 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.
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. CS Tunari lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 21 and 11 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.
0‑3 to Gloria Bistrița, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CS Tunari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 CS Tunari, and it is not being withdrawn.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CS Tunari this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Feb 2029
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Zakir 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Cristian Marin has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at CS Tunari has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
CS Tunari close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. CS Tunari have done the hard part with Politehnica Iași, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CS Tunari can pretend not to have heard.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at CS Tunari training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Zakir 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.
Day 10 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
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.
“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 CS Tunari, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Yassine Zakir 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.