Paul Wade 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Cosmin Gladun 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one CSC Dumbrăvița will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Nobody at CSC Dumbrăvița 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Concordia Chiajna in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSC Dumbrăvița know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ianis Tarbă did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Politehnica Iași were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Dragos Dragusin, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSC Dumbrăvița this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and CSC Dumbrăvița will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Christophe Kabongo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Paluska was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
“I did not go to CSC Dumbrăvița to sit and watch. I want to come back to Mlada Boleslav and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
4 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.
Stefan Jovanoski 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 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at CSC Dumbrăvița training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cosmin Gladun 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Dragos Dragusin after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Nime Sacko is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSC Dumbrăvița lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CSC Dumbrăvița have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Paul Wade 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.
At 21 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.
Match14 Oct 2026
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSC Dumbrăvița and FCSB in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSC Dumbrăvița this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and CSC Dumbrăvița are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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.
2‑2 against Rayo Vallecano, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Lukáš Letenay will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Mlada Boleslav escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Ondřej Karafiát 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mlada Boleslav can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I watch every Mlada Boleslav game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at CSC Dumbrăvița runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
12 combined actions and 6.96. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Paul Wade 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Carlo Casap. 2‑0 against CS Dinamo Bucharest, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at CSC Dumbrăvița training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Misarăş 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSC Dumbrăvița, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Nobody at CSC Dumbrăvița is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSC Dumbrăvița lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Stefan Jovanoski 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Câmpulung Muscel leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Dragos Dragusin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the CSC Dumbrăvița dressing room was either.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSC Dumbrăvița, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Vlad Băluţoiu 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 manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
57 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. CSC Dumbrăvița lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Grazer AK have kept their man, and CSC Dumbrăvița go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Ianis Tarbă has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ianis Tarbă. 2‑0 against Metalul Buzău, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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.
The offer from Bukovyna for Nime Sacko 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
CSC Dumbrăvița close the window on a squad of their own making
20 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Concordia Chiajna keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSC Dumbrăvița this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Carlo Casap is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CSC Dumbrăvița, another week without a signature from Gabriel David.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Viktoria Žižkov will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $20.0K — a club that wants Štěpán Lelek enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Pardubice this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viktoria Žižkov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Viktoria Žižkov have gone to Mlada Boleslav 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.
Vít Valošek was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $190.0K. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Eliáš Piták and Viktoria Žižkov agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Albert Labík was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mlada Boleslav have kept their man, and Viktoria Žižkov go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. CSC Dumbrăvița scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Radu Ciurel, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.73
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Paul Wade 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Voluntari have kept their man, and CSC Dumbrăvița go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The goal that put Voluntari ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when CSC Dumbrăvița equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.