Marked for Emanuele Padulo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 May 2032
“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.
Market24 May 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gornik Zabrze is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom24 May 2032
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Gabriel Lukačević has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad24 May 2032
Yvan Ikia Dimi 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.
Squad24 May 2032
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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 dugout24 May 2032
Federico Medina has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gornik Zabrze will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout24 May 2032
Antef Tsoungui 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 Gornik Zabrze, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout24 May 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Emanuele Padulo, and the manager let it.
Market24 May 2032
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Malthe Højholt’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 May 2032
“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 The request is on a desk at Gornik Zabrze, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad17 May 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gornik Zabrze this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2032
Words at Gornik Zabrze training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ondřej Zmrzlý 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.
The dugout17 May 2032
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 Malthe Højholt is on it.
The dugout17 May 2032
Iván Pomba 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 Gornik Zabrze, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout17 May 2032
Fabian Mazur 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.
Market17 May 2032
2 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Gornik Zabrze money.
Market17 May 2032
The name of Yvan Ikia Dimi keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Gornik Zabrze say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad17 May 2032
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market26 Apr 2032
Hubert Zwoźny hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gornik Zabrze can pretend not to have heard.
Market26 Apr 2032
Only the photograph left for Iván Pomba
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Iván Pomba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gornik Zabrze the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom26 Apr 2032
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Iván Pomba has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad26 Apr 2032
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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.
Squad26 Apr 2032
A muscle injury sidelines Emanuele Padulo for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Gornik Zabrze will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad26 Apr 2032
Dominik Sarga 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.
Squad26 Apr 2032
Gornik Zabrze are still strangers to each other
5 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.
The dugout26 Apr 2032
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 dugout26 Apr 2032
Hubert Zwoźny 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 Gornik Zabrze, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Apr 2032
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gornik Zabrze can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Apr 2032
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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.
Squad19 Apr 2032
Words at Gornik Zabrze training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Malthe Højholt 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.
The dugout19 Apr 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ricardo Schutte, and the manager let it.
Squad19 Apr 2032
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Gornik Zabrze know it.
The dugout19 Apr 2032
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.
Squad19 Apr 2032
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Market19 Apr 2032
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Gornik Zabrze could get for him.
The dugout19 Apr 2032
Dawid Olejarka 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 Gornik Zabrze, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout12 Apr 2032
“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.
Market12 Apr 2032
“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 Gornik Zabrze, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market12 Apr 2032
Only the photograph left for Dominik Sarga
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dominik Sarga will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gornik Zabrze the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad12 Apr 2032
Antef Tsoungui 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.
Squad12 Apr 2032
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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.
Market12 Apr 2032
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout12 Apr 2032
Ondřej Zmrzlý has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gornik Zabrze will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout12 Apr 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gledjan Pusi, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Apr 2032
Antef Tsoungui 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 Gornik Zabrze, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Mar 2032
“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 Gornik Zabrze, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Mar 2032
Dominik Sarga has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gornik Zabrze they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Yvan Ikia Dimi 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.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ondřej Zmrzlý was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Mar 2032
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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 Ondřej Zmrzlý is on it.
The dugout15 Mar 2032
Hubert Zwoźny 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 Hubert Zwoźny trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout15 Mar 2032
“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.
Market15 Mar 2032
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ondřej Zmrzlý signs something — a contract at Gornik Zabrze or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Iván Pomba still has not settled
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Gornik Zabrze would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jan 2032
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gornik Zabrze lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Jan 2032
Mees Kreekels breaks a bone — 17 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market19 Jan 2032
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market19 Jan 2032
“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.
Squad19 Jan 2032
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Transfer targets19 Jan 2032
The clubs have shaken hands with Jagiellonia; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Player ratings19 Jan 2032
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market19 Jan 2032
Dominik Sarga has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gornik Zabrze they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout19 Jan 2032
Emanuele Padulo: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Gornik Zabrze have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 Jun 2031
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Piast waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Gornik Zabrze is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market9 Jun 2031
“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 Gornik Zabrze, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets9 Jun 2031
Gornik Zabrze have gone to Jagiellonia with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad9 Jun 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gornik Zabrze this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Jakub Moskalewicz 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. Jakub Moskalewicz has, at Gornik Zabrze, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Malthe Højholt 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.
Squad9 Jun 2031
44 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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 Ondřej Zmrzlý is on it.
The dugout9 Jun 2031
Lukas Engel 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 Gornik Zabrze, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match2 Jun 2031
Every point is an argument now for Gornik Zabrze
Position 14 and 20 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The terraces2 Jun 2031
Anger at Gornik Zabrze spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market2 Jun 2031
“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.
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Gornik Zabrze is running low.
Squad2 Jun 2031
Dominik Sarga gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Dominik Sarga has just signed for Gornik Zabrze, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom2 Jun 2031
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad2 Jun 2031
Ondřej Zmrzlý 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 Jun 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yvan Ikia Dimi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.