Radnicki Nis will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Partizan were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Partizan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Novi Pazar had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
12 seasons and 489 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 21 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Partizan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Partizan asked and Maccabi Tel Aviv said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer from Vojvodina for Emmanuel Uchenna Aririerisim 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Partizan, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Partizan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
$77.0K was the most the club would pay and Vojvodina were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Partizan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Partizan heard it as anything else.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
Ruban Khan 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.
Boardroom21 Jul 2036
8 academy players handed senior numbers at Smederevo 1924
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Smederevo 1924 asked and Partizan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Kabel have done the hard part with Loznica, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Fredrik Bjørkan 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.
Kabel offered $2.0K; Mladost Lucani said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kabel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Partizan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alwande Roaldsøy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kabel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The deal with Partizan is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The offer went to Mladost Lucani 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Crvena Zvezda have kept their man, and Kabel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joona Malinen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ernis Qestaj 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lazar Petrovic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Milos Simic has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vladimir Gacinovic has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Partizan lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Partizan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Partizan have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad7 Jul 2036
Words at Partizan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alwande Roaldsøy 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.
11 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
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 Bogdan Petrović is on it.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Partizan lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer went to Arsenal 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Partizan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Partizan can pretend not to have heard.
Partizan offered $1.1M; Vojvodina said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The name of Bogdan Petrović has come up in conversations Partizan were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Partizan asked and Tekstilac Odžaci said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alwande Roaldsøy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 52 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Partizan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Fenerbahce is saying, and nobody at Partizan is enjoying the guessing.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The offer from TSC for Bogdan Petrović 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.
$3.1M on the table at FC Copenhagen. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Partizan offered $2.7M; Vojvodina said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nikola Todosijević has just signed for Partizan, and for once the answer mattered.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $590.0K — a club that wants Luka Nastasic enough to be asked twice.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
TSC are out and Partizan go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match21 May 2036
Šimon Drozd wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Šimon Drozd found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and TSC went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Partizan have had the benefit of it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Partizan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Partizan heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alwande Roaldsøy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Partizan, another week without a signature from Jakob Schöller.
Nobody at Partizan 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Esteban Salinas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Bogdan Petrović is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Esteban Salinas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Partizan would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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 Noah Carr has written the date down.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Partizan could ask drops and the wages Wilson Da Costa can ask rise.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Esteban Salinas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Nikola Krstić is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikola Sarcević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Partizan. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Partizan have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Partizan, and 2 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Partizan 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Partizan they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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 Milan Vukotić is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Partizan, another week without a signature from Wilson Da Costa.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Esteban Salinas 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 Partizan will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 76 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Esteban Salinas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Partizan hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
Željko Samčović 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Partizan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from IMT for Esteban Salinas 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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Kabel moved on, Nicolas Madsen reports back to Partizan, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Partizan is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Crvena Zvezda; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Djordje Jovanovic after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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 Alwande Roaldsøy is on it.
The clubs have shaken hands with Santos; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 2, 67 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Partizan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$12.4M was the most the club would pay and Cerro Porteno were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
$4.4M on the table at Mainz 05. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Timothy Castagne will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Djordje Jovanovic on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Timothy Castagne will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Words at Partizan training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petar Jauković 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 Partizan 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 trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Partizan has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Bogdan Petrović’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Partizan needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Milan Vukotić signs something — a contract at Partizan or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Partizan. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kabel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Cukaricki go through and Kabel go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Everything agreed with Zeleznicar Pancevo, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
$13.0K on the table at Voždovac. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
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.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Andrija Ivic 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
In brief
Player ratingsIlias Trafeh beats them one at a time
18 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Partizan have lost him in all but the paperwork.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bogdan Petrović provided it, and the 9.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
8 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
“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 Partizan, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Auckland City for Travis Akomeah 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Novi Pazar waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Partizan is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Villarreal have kept their man, and Partizan go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Noah Carr has just signed for Partizan, and for once the answer mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Partizan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Kabel have done the hard part with Vojvodina, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrija Ivic 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.
Ernis Qestaj 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 shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Kabel will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Branislav Dimitrijevic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Partizan the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nobody at Partizan 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 dugout12 Mar 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Travis Akomeah's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Partizan know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Partizan. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
9 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Partizan people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Grafičar for Bogdan Petrović 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.
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Partizan offered $5.8M; Vojvodina said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Partizan have gone to OFK Beograd 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Esteban Salinas has, at Partizan, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Partizan have gone to Vojvodina 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Radnicki 1923 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at TSC is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
A brace, and Olavi Keturi takes the afternoon — 8.24
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Olavi Keturi provided it, and the 8.24 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 TSC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Crvena Zvezda, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Stefan Vidaković 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Prestige Mboungou 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 TSC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Stefan Vidaković 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.
A 1‑0 win over Spartak Subotica, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings9 Oct 2034
Marcelo Cauã was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody at TSC 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.