“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 The request is on a desk at Lushnja, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lushnja they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Lushnja know it.
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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Olagoke Olajobi. 2‑0 against Flamurtari, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Player ratings8 Nov 2032
Wa’il Jaafar was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
SquadWords at Lushnja training over how hard people work
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lushnja lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lushnja will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lushnja can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lushnja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad3 May 2032
Words at Lushnja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Redon Danaj 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 mood at Lushnja has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lushnja lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a 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 Lushnja, and it is not being withdrawn.
This is not rotation. Karamady Gassama has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Lushnja is pretending otherwise.
Squad19 Apr 2032
Words at Lushnja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angjelo Kola 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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lushnja, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 104 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.
Angjelo Kola 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 Redon Danaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lushnja, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Red Star people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Akinleye will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Red Star the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Red Star have gone to Le Mans FC with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Red Star this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is not rotation. Tidiane Dicko-Sudrot has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Red Star is pretending otherwise.
Squad25 Aug 2031
Words at Red Star training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álvaro Zamora 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Le Mans FC have kept their man, and Red Star go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Red Star, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Damien Janela will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Red Star the goodbyes have quietly begun.
$670.0K on the table at Pau FC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
$220.0K on the table at Le Havre AC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$220.0K was the most the club would pay and Le Havre AC were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jakub Snopczyński has just signed for Red Star, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Red Star people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Dijon is saying, and nobody at Red Star is enjoying the guessing.
Red Star asked and FC Lorient said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Words at Red Star training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bradley Danger 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.
Serxho Ujka 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 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.