Issa Djibrilla 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.
Squad14 May 2029
Ruan Renato 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.
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 Qismət Alıyev is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Qismət Alıyev signs something — a contract at Zira or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zira, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Qismət Alıyev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Leroy-Jacques Mickels 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.
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 Qismət Alıyev is on it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zira, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Qismət Alıyev 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.
Nobody at Zira 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Zira that is a harder question to answer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zira have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Qismət Alıyev 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.
Leroy-Jacques Mickels 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.
Nobody at Zira 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.
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 Steeve-Mike Eyango has written the date down.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Issa Djibrilla’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zira can pretend not to have heard.
Issa Djibrilla 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.
Three points for Zira, 1‑0 the final word against Kapaz in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Ruan Renato 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nico Valentine is living that version at Zira, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Qismət Alıyev 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Araz Medvedev has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Issa Djibrilla signs something — a contract at Zira or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Catanzaro have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Catanzaro is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Catanzaro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marco Imperiale was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The phone has started ringing about Giuseppe Coppola again, and this time the name on the line is Saba. Catanzaro are listening politely and promising nothing.