Perth Glory paid $380.0K and Adelaide United took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panathinaikos have kept their man, and Adelaide United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Adelaide United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Brisbane Roar have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Sotiri Phillis. The answer from Adelaide United has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Copelotti 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
A muscle injury sidelines Israel Monga for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Adelaide United will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Perth Glory 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 Perth Glory people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Perth Glory can pretend not to have heard.
The chase for Jacob Brazete ended with $380.0K changing hands and Adelaide United out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Luke Brattan 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.
$40.0K was the most the club would pay and Macarthur FC 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.
The terraces14 Jun 2027
Perth Glory spend $380.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $380.0K for Jacob Brazete, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sunderland have kept their man, and Perth Glory go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Adelaide United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Anselmo 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A last season at home is what Joshua Smits is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ajak Riak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Adelaide United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Successful dribbles: 35. 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.
Out, 0‑0 to Melbourne Victory, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Alex Kouto Horio Pisano: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
6 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ural have kept their man, and Adelaide United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Adelaide United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Adelaide United can tell you which week it ends in.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panathinaikos have kept their man, and Adelaide United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Dylan Pierias 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.
Adelaide United have made the call to Melbourne City. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Adelaide United know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
The words a physio says slowly. 71 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.
Anselmo 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 easiest signature of my career.” Dylan Pierias and Adelaide United agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ben Folami has his answer from Adelaide United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Owen Gallagher chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Melbourne City? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Adelaide United have no good answer.
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Adelaide United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Adelaide United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 35 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
1‑2 to Auckland FC, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 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 1‑2 Owen Gallagher left the room before anybody could ask which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Craig Goodwin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dylan Pierias’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Adelaide United needing him to play as if none of it matters.
116 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Adelaide United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1 for Jay Barnett, marked 7.91, 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.
“I watch every Adelaide United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Central Coast Mariners runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Adelaide United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
123 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Adelaide United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Jacob Brazete, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.00
A mark of 8.00 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 20 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.
“I watch every Adelaide United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Western Sydney Wanderers runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Craig Goodwin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
SquadA Adelaide United teenager takes the young player award
The words a physio says slowly. 130 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.
Anselmo 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Panagiotis Kikianis has come out of that comparison in the side, and Adelaide United have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Adelaide United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Owen Gallagher was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Adelaide United dressing room was either.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Melbourne Victory defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Brisbane Roar in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
138 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Adelaide United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 34 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It needed Juan Muñiz to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Central Coast Mariners, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Owen Gallagher after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Melbourne Victory in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Adelaide United was different afterwards.
In brief
The dugoutEthan Cox asks for a word with the manager