Marked for Howen Rada
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Apr 2029
A fracture rules Petar Petrović out for 47 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Randers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market9 Apr 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.
Market9 Apr 2029
Randers say no — this time
The offer from St. Louis CITY SC for Noah Shamoun 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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Paul Izzo 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 Apr 2029
Words at Randers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wessel Dammers 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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
“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; Randers are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
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.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
Wessel Dammers knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Randers, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market9 Apr 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Wessel Dammers’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Mar 2029
Lasse Abildgaard damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Squad12 Mar 2029
A fracture rules Petar Petrović out for 79 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Randers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad12 Mar 2029
A falling-out at Randers
Erik Botheim and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Wessel Dammers 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.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
Amady Camara gets it from the manager
“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 dugout12 Mar 2029
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 Thibault Klidjé is on it.
Market12 Mar 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Wessel Dammers’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Randers, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market12 Mar 2029
Randers have made Howen Rada available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Feb 2029
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Randers lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad5 Feb 2029
A fracture rules Petar Petrović out for 119 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Randers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market5 Feb 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Randers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Randers close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 6 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Market5 Feb 2029
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
Everything agreed with Aalborg, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al-Ittihad keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Erik Botheim 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 Randers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Howen Rada arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Howen Rada has, at Randers, and the first month will show what that does to a man.