Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Alex Matos scored in the 85th minute, Gillingham had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Plymouth Argyle took the lot.
Marked 7.52. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Konstantin Plish has just signed for Plymouth Argyle, and for once the answer mattered.
He is 23 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Olympiacos B, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Paschalis Toufakis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Olympiacos B the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Position 8 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Konstantinos Angelakis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Olympiacos B the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Yusuf Taiye 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Panagiotis Santis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Olympiacos B the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikos Gotzamanidis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Olympiacos B will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Position 8 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Olympiacos B is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yusuf Taiye 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.