What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Slask can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stavros Psyropoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slask the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Slask has been clear about where Przemysław Banaszak stands, which is more than many ever get.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Szymon Żurkowski is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Gaoussou Diakité is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Slask can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Slask is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lamine Diaby Fadiga 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Szymon Żurkowski. 2‑0 against Korona, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stavros Psyropoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slask the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lamine Diaby Fadiga 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stade de Reims have kept their man, and Slask go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 8.09 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Edu Espiau
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.
“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 Slask, and it is not being withdrawn.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Slask will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slask they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Szymon Żurkowski 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slask they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Stavros Psyropoulos 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.
Lamine Diaby Fadiga 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Slask, another week without a signature from Michał Szromnik.
“Another season, another badge, another dressing room to win over. I would like one pre-season at Slask where somebody actually looks at me.” He belongs to Lechia until the spell ends; the argument is with the club that owns him.
A 1‑1 draw with GKS Katowice leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Sebastian Linetty chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Slask will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Slask this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edu Espiau was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jakub Żewłakow trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Oskar Wojtczak is on it.
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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Slask the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
He is going to Widzew Łódź, the club has $3.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Yegor Matsenko 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. Edu Espiau 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.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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 Przemysław Banaszak has written the date down.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Przemysław Banaszak signs something — a contract at Slask or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Lamine Diaby Fadiga and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Edu Espiau 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Arkadiusz Frankowski 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Maciej Szymanski 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. Adam Piatek 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. Robert Moder 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
12 new faces, and Slask 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.
“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; Slask are dealing with a man who wants a different country.