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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vittoriosa Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
17 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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 Glenn Azzopardi to a room that had heard them before.
“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 dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Kenley Scerri'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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Swieqi United in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
12 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.
4 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.
Jamie Wähling 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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mpho Moletsane has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Vittoriosa Stars has to find a result from somewhere.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Vittoriosa Stars can tell you which week it ends in.
“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 dugout23 Nov 2026
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 Glenn Azzopardi left the room before anybody could ask which.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Vittoriosa Stars lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Vittoriosa Stars will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 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 Vittoriosa Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Vittoriosa Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Jamie Wähling 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Vittoriosa Stars told Jamie Wähling something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mtarfa 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. Vittoriosa Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutBlessing Brafo asks for a word with the manager
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Vittoriosa Stars lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
6 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.
Jamie Wähling 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Jamie Wähling 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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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 0‑3 Glenn Azzopardi left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Vittoriosa Stars has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Vittoriosa Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Sebastian Cassar Torreggiani 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 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 dugout31 Aug 2026
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 0‑2 Glenn Azzopardi left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
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.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Vittoriosa Stars have gone and got theirs early.