Marked for Lorenzo Delaygue
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Dec 2030
Defences have started doubling up on Abdulrahman Taiwo
38 goals and a season average of 8.02 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Mario Mercadante damages knee ligaments — 100 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
Match14 Dec 2030
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Spartak Myjava, and it could have been more.
Player ratings16 Dec 2030
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.75, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match16 Dec 2030
The season ends: position 2 for Spartak Trnava
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 57 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Market16 Dec 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Trnava can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Spartak Trnava may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Libor Holík in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Trnava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Words at Spartak Trnava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michal Tomič 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Jul 2030
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Spartak Trnava people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market8 Jul 2030
Nomme Kalju come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Spartak Trnava did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market8 Jul 2030
Only the photograph left for Tom Lockyer
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tom Lockyer will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Trnava the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets8 Jul 2030
Everything agreed with Sporting CP, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Abdulrahman Taiwo 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.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lorenzo Delaygue is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad8 Jul 2030
Libor Holík 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.
Transfer targets8 Jul 2030
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad8 Jul 2030
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 May 2030
Abdulrahman Taiwo 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.
Squad13 May 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Libor Holík was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout13 May 2030
Stefan Skrbo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartak Trnava 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 dugout13 May 2030
Joshua Frau 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.
Match13 May 2030
Continental football is in reach for Spartak Trnava
41 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
Market13 May 2030
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Spartak Trnava could get for him.
The dugout13 May 2030
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Squad13 May 2030
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Spartak Trnava will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jan 2030
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartak Trnava lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets21 Jan 2030
Spartak Trnava and Podbrezova have settled on $610.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Transfer targets21 Jan 2030
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Banik Ostrava keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Abdulrahman Taiwo 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.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Kacper Czekański 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. Kacper Czekański has, at Spartak Trnava, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Libor Holík 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.
Transfer targets21 Jan 2030
Spartak Trnava asked and Zlate Moravce said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market21 Jan 2030
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Spartak Trnava will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
The dugout21 Jan 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dominik Skriniar, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jan 2030
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartak Trnava lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market14 Jan 2030
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Spartak Trnava have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market14 Jan 2030
Only the photograph left for Eduard Duţu
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eduard Duţu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Trnava the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market14 Jan 2030
“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 Spartak Trnava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom14 Jan 2030
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ondřej Šašinka 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.
Squad14 Jan 2030
Abdulrahman Taiwo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Jan 2030
Words at Spartak Trnava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Libor Holík 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.
Squad14 Jan 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Stanislav Brabec and Spartak Trnava agree another 5 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Jan 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Lorenzo Delaygue
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Spartak Trnava lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Jan 2030
The offer from DAC Dunajska Streda for Ondřej Šašinka 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.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Libor Holík honoured for the season
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Spartak Trnava had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Market7 Jan 2030
Tom Lockyer 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 Spartak Trnava can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout7 Jan 2030
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Market7 Jan 2030
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Spartak Trnava have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad7 Jan 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Trnava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Juraj Hamsik gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Juraj Hamsik has just signed for Spartak Trnava, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom7 Jan 2030
DAC Dunajska Streda will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Juanmi Carrión has pre-agreed a move to Spartak Trnava, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Dec 2029
40 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartak Trnava lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market31 Dec 2029
Only the photograph left for Kristián Bari
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kristián Bari will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Trnava the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Abdulrahman Taiwo 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.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Libor Holík was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout31 Dec 2029
Aaron Drinan 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 Aaron Drinan is on it.
The dugout31 Dec 2029
The manager makes an example of Moussa Touré
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout31 Dec 2029
Ondřej Šašinka 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 Spartak Trnava, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market31 Dec 2029
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Spartak Trnava money.
Market31 Dec 2029
The Šimon Faško talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Spartak Trnava know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market23 Jul 2029
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Zlate Moravce waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Spartak Trnava is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market23 Jul 2029
The bid was some way short and Spartak Trnava did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The dugout23 Jul 2029
Lorenzo Delaygue: 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.” Spartak Trnava have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets23 Jul 2029
No thanks: Juma Bah rejects the move
Spartak Trnava had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Crvena Zvezda, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Joshua Frau is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad23 Jul 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Trnava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom23 Jul 2029
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Michal Tomič 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.
Squad23 Jul 2029
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.