Marked for Nicolas Trabucchi
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Aug 2029
89 days out for Jorge Fernandes after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEL Larisa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market20 Aug 2029
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Kampaniakos had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Market20 Aug 2029
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEL Larisa people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad20 Aug 2029
Dimitris Kaloskamis and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets20 Aug 2029
AEL Larisa asked and Lokomotiva Zagreb said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad20 Aug 2029
The medical room confirms 16 days on the sidelines for Ryan Sweeney, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad20 Aug 2029
Words at AEL Larisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davíð Kristján Ólafsson 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.
Transfer targets20 Aug 2029
A loan move for Spas Paskov is in the works
AEL Larisa have made the call to Lokomotiv Plovdiv. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout20 Aug 2029
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 Zisis Chatzistravos is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Aug 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market6 Aug 2029
Only the photograph left for Ahmed Kossonou
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ahmed Kossonou will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEL Larisa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Álex Petxarromán and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom6 Aug 2029
The numbers do not look good at AEL Larisa
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Everybody at AEL Larisa saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Transfer targets6 Aug 2029
AEL Larisa asked and OFI said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad6 Aug 2029
A row about effort at AEL Larisa
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davíð Kristján Ólafsson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market6 Aug 2029
Emir Velić is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at AEL Larisa has been clear about where Emir Velić stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout6 Aug 2029
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $95.7K of what AEL Larisa paid for Noah Verhoeven is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Market5 Feb 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEL Larisa can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Window shuts: 0 in, 2 out at AEL Larisa
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at AEL Larisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmed Kossonou 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.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Newcastle Jets have kept their man, and AEL Larisa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout5 Feb 2029
The manager makes an example of Ahmed Kossonou
“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.
Squad5 Feb 2029
“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; AEL Larisa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Shane Duffy 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.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Ryan Sweeney slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ryan Sweeney is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market30 Oct 2028
Only the photograph left for Ahmed Kossonou
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ahmed Kossonou will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEL Larisa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Oct 2028
A row about effort at AEL Larisa
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmed Kossonou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Oct 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.
Match28 Oct 2028
Panionios left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match28 Oct 2028
After 4 games, AEL Larisa finally taste it again
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Panionios; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
The dugout30 Oct 2028
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 Dimitrios Giakoumakis left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Nicolas Trabucchi 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.
Boardroom30 Oct 2028
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.
The dugout30 Oct 2028
Ahmed Kossonou knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ahmed Kossonou trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad2 Oct 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Match27 Sep 2028
A 2‑1 win over Levadiakos, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match30 Sep 2028
Still nobody has beaten AEL Larisa
The unbeaten run reaches 14. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match27 Sep 2028
AEL Larisa win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 110th minute. Levadiakos will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Market2 Oct 2028
Only the photograph left for Ahmed Kossonou
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ahmed Kossonou will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEL Larisa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match30 Sep 2028
AEL Larisa make home a hard place to visit
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Age has not caught Gaël Kakuta yet — 7.96
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.96 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
A defender's goal wins it for AEL Larisa — 7.11
1 for Nicolas Trabucchi, marked 7.11, 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.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Álex Petxarromán 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.