Marked for Daniel Tumminelli
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jun 2029
A fracture rules Tomáš Kučera out for 155 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Egaleo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Jun 2029
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Egaleo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market11 Jun 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.
Market11 Jun 2029
Egaleo say no — this time
The offer from AE Kition for Daniel Tumminelli 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.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
The deal with OFI 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.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Words exchanged at Egaleo
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Boardroom11 Jun 2029
Still nobody in the Egaleo dugout
10 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
Egaleo asked and AEL Larisa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad11 Jun 2029
A row about effort at Egaleo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucas Shlimon was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Apr 2029
Miloš Deletić damages knee ligaments — 38 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
Boardroom2 Apr 2029
Pressure builds in the Egaleo boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Tempers go at Egaleo
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yeremi Valerón and Egaleo agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Javi Mier 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 dugout2 Apr 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrej Nikolić, and the manager let it.
Boardroom2 Apr 2029
Egaleo have to sell first
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
Market2 Apr 2029
The clock runs on Yeremi Valerón's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
The dugout2 Apr 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 Egaleo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Dec 2028
The wait goes on for Egaleo
11 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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Words exchanged at Egaleo
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Squad18 Dec 2028
A row about effort at Egaleo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ben Osborn was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match16 Dec 2028
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mouhamed Mbaye, and the manager let it.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Giorgos Xenitidis will call it something else in private.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
Lucas Shlimon gets picked when it counts
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 Lucas Shlimon is on it.
Looking ahead18 Dec 2028
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Giorgos Xenitidis’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Egaleo needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.85 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad20 Dec 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Egaleo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market20 Dec 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad20 Dec 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad20 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Daniel Tumminelli 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. Daniel Tumminelli has, at Egaleo, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Match18 Dec 2027
A 3‑1 win over Ilioupoli, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Marked 8.12 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mouhamed Mbaye will call it something else in private.