Marked for Matteo Cingolani
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Apr 2029
A falling-out at Marko
Giorgos Masouras and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom30 Apr 2029
The numbers do not look good at Marko
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Alexander Johansson 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 dugout30 Apr 2029
The manager makes an example of Mathias Abdou
“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.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
Lucas Puchetta knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lucas Puchetta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Arvydas Valskis has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Feb 2029
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Marko will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market12 Feb 2029
Only the photograph left for Diego Coxi
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Diego Coxi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Marko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Feb 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Marko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matteo Cingolani has just signed for Marko, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Words at Marko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nontas Pantelakis 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.
Transfer targets12 Feb 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panetolikos have kept their man, and Marko go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market12 Feb 2029
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Marko, another week without a signature from Sergio Fernández.
The dugout12 Feb 2029
“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.
Market12 Feb 2029
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Marko has been clear about where Frédéric Miyenga stands, which is more than many ever get.