5 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kenny Imariagbe has just signed for Naxxar Lions, and for once the answer mattered.
“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; Naxxar Lions are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Naxxar Lions asked and Sliema Wanderers said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Théo Kruger 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.
Supporters organise against the Naxxar Lions board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Naxxar Lions 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Naxxar Lions can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Théo Kruger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Naxxar Lions can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Floriana have kept their man, and Naxxar Lions go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Yeangel Montero 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Théo Kruger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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; Naxxar Lions are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“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 dugout14 Dec 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 Charlton Busuttil left the room before anybody could ask which.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 22 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Naxxar Lions have a decision that made itself.
Out, 1‑6 to Sliema Wanderers, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows 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 Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Naxxar Lions have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Naxxar Lions and Sliema Wanderers in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Yeangel Montero 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Théo Kruger 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.