Marked for Max Lott
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Jan 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Ethnikos Achnas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market10 Jan 2028
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Neneco 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 terraces10 Jan 2028
The crowd has taken to Ilyas Baig
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.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“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.
Loan watch10 Jan 2028
“I watch every Ethnikos Achnas game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Paralimni runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Market10 Jan 2028
Max Lott is 20, and Ethnikos Achnas 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Aug 2027
Mike van der Hoorn damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Alexandr Kokotun out for 74 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AE Kition will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
The silence upstairs is getting loud at AE Kition
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Aug 2027
Róbert Litauszki damages knee ligaments — 95 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Pressure builds in the Ethnikos Achnas boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Neneco 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.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luís Machado and Ethnikos Achnas agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Aug 2027
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
Match2 Jan 2027
10 matches without a win for AE Kition
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around AE Kition are no longer polite ones.
Match2 Jan 2027
Chastening afternoon for AE Kition
A 0‑4 beating by Omonoia was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad4 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AE Kition this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Jorge Miramón 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.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“I watch every AE Kition game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Agia Napa runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Waldo 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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
Nobody left the AE Kition dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
90% of the income goes out in wages at AE Kition
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.