“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 The request is on a desk at NK Celje, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at NK Celje is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at NK Celje heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Celje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at NK Celje, and 0 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
“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 NK Celje know it.
$3.2M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Celje they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The name of Tilen Letonja has come up in conversations NK Celje were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Celje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NK Celje can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around NK Celje they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Celje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: NK Zavrc have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tilen Letonja. The answer from NK Celje has not changed — yet.
“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 NK Celje, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Felipe Curcio will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around NK Celje the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Juho Lähteenmäki 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Rudi Požeg Vancaš is still in the building
The offer from ND Gorica for Valters Lūsis 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Felipe Curcio will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around NK Celje the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Juho Lähteenmäki 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. NK Celje know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Armandas Kučys 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.