It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OFI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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; OFI are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Giannis Apostolakis is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikos Christogeorgos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around OFI they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Thiago Nuss and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Fede Vico 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.
“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 OFI know it.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. OFI have done the hard part with Olympiacos, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at OFI until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Thiago Nuss 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 had been thinking. Aitor Cantalapiedra 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.
3 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.
“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 OFI, and it is not being withdrawn.
Thiago Nuss 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 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.
Player ratings15 Jan 2029
Thiago Nuss was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.28. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. OFI told Nikos Christogeorgos something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at OFI pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
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.
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets8 Jan 2029
$3.1M settles it between the clubs for David Carmo
Olympiacos have accepted the money. What OFI do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Thiago Nuss 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 had been thinking. Aitor Cantalapiedra 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.
1‑1 against Dinamo Bucharest, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Federico Macheda obliged against Aris Thessaloniki. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is OFI.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Thiago Nuss 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aitor Cantalapiedra 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.
At 22 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OFI will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about OFI and Levadiakos in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. OFI will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yonathan Del Valle is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Thiago Nuss 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.
Nobody at OFI will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Giannis Theodosoulakis is somebody else's player now, and $330.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Eddie Salcedo signs something — a contract at OFI or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at OFI. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. OFI will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Nobody at OFI will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. OFI lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around OFI people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OFI will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
$390.0K settles it between the clubs for Nasos Dabizas
AEL Larisa have accepted the money. What OFI do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Thiago Nuss 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.
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 Thiago Nuss is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kostas Kostoulas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Eddie Salcedo signs something — a contract at OFI or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
96 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. OFI lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at OFI is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
$920.0K was the most the club would pay and Volos NPS 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Eddie Salcedo 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at OFI, 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.
The offer from PAOK for Thiago Nuss was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
At 23 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.
$920.0K on the table at Volos NPS. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Roderick Miranda will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around OFI the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Add another name to the list: Radnicki 1923 have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yonathan Del Valle. The answer from OFI has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OFI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aitor Cantalapiedra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Klidman Lilo
The dugoutEddie Salcedo has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutThiago Nuss knocks on the manager’s door
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. OFI have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from MFK Skalica for Yonathan Del Valle was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The deal with Porto is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
OFI offered $120.0K; Levadiakos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.
The offer from Panathinaikos for Éder was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mika Peters is living that version at OFI, and it tends to show in the first month.
OFI have gone to PAOK 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.
The name of Yonathan Del Valle has come up in conversations OFI were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Thiago Nuss 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 offer went to Levadiakos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$23.0K was the most the club would pay and AEK 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympiacos have kept their man, and OFI go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Dickmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mikołaj Pawlucy has, at OFI, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lorenzo Dickmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at OFI can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody at OFI will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The loan was meant to give him football. 3 games and 0 goals later he is back at OFI no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
60 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. OFI lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. OFI will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” OFI have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OFI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aitor Cantalapiedra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
68 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. OFI lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Thiago Nuss 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.
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 Eddie Salcedo is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at OFI. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. OFI lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OFI will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Thiago Nuss 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.
“I watch every OFI game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AEL Larisa runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giannis Gianniotas 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álex Méndez 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andreas Bouchalakis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at OFI. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
38 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.