Marked for Stanley Joseph
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market5 Mar 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Stanley Joseph: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Brisbane Roar have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad5 Mar 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sebit Ngor and Brisbane Roar agree another 4 years.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Ajdin Hrustić 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.
Match3 Mar 2029
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Mar 2029
The manager makes an example of Justin Vidic
“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.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
A performance of 8.47 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Jul 2028
121 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Ajdin Hrustić 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Grant Ross has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market5 Jun 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Brisbane Roar is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Ajdin Hrustić 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.
Squad5 Jun 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Brisbane Roar will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Market5 Jun 2028
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Brisbane Roar will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
$4.0M taken back off the Brisbane Roar table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
Market5 Jun 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Chinedu Chukwu may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Jul 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Remo Stars may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Adama Goïta in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Remo Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Hosea Michael commits to Remo Stars for another 5 years.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.97, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match10 Jul 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stanley Joseph, and the manager let it.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Adama Goïta leaves them behind him
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.