8 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. José Acosta will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slutsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Slutsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Slutsk can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad17 Sep 2029
Words at Slutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ricardo Quiñónez 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slutsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Slutsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Yuriy Pavlyukovets 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.
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.
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told José Acosta.
Ivan Mikhnyuk 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.
8 goals in one match, Vladislav Fedosov on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Slutsk and Dnepr Mogilev.
At 23 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.
Yuriy Pavlyukovets 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.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Slutsk are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Yuriy Pavlyukovets 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.
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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Mikel Villanueva scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Fayha they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Hugo Moura 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.
2‑3 to Al-Shabab, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Words at Al-Fayha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jason 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.
At 27 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.
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Al-Fayha this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Khaled Al-Rammah is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Fayha they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Hugo Moura 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Fayha they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Add another name to the list: Najran have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Khaled Al-Rammah. The answer from Al-Fayha has not changed — yet.
Hugo Moura 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.
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 Al-Fayha 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mufti Rahim 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Fayha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Al-Fayha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikel Villanueva 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Al-Nassr will make the call about Sattam Al-Ruqi this week. Al-Fayha have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Al-Fayha, another week without a signature from Rayyan Enad.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rayyan Enad trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Fayha is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Hugo Moura 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.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Al-Fayha now.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Al-Fayha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jason 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.
Nobody at Al-Fayha 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 loan was meant to give him football. 1 games and 0 goals later he is back at Al-Fayha no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Hugo Moura 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.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Al-Fayha now.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Al-Fayha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jason 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.
Nobody at Al-Fayha 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Al-Fayha lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Fayha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Al-Fayha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdulhadi Al-Harajin 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.
Nobody at Al-Fayha 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Al-Fayha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdulhadi Al-Harajin 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Fayha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Al-Fayha 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.