Marked for David Bonacina
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Sep 2035
MSK Zilina refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 17 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.
Market24 Sep 2035
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Chimezie Williams will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around MSK Zilina the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Ridwan Sanusi 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.
Match22 Sep 2035
A 2‑0 win over Tatran Prešov, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Looking ahead24 Sep 2035
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. MSK Zilina will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
One of those days for Jan Franěk
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.26, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Words at MSK Zilina training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Souleymane Sagnan 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.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and MSK Zilina know it.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” David Bonacina and MSK Zilina agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Jan Franěk gets picked when it counts
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Patrik Siegl
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market21 May 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at MSK Zilina is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad21 May 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MSK Zilina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom21 May 2035
The numbers do not look good at MSK Zilina
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad21 May 2035
Aleksandar Popović 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.
Squad21 May 2035
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at MSK Zilina can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout21 May 2035
Nobody at MSK Zilina 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 dugout21 May 2035
Dan Kohout 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.
The dugout21 May 2035
John Auta knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and John Auta trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad21 May 2035
The formation has left David Bonacina behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. MSK Zilina will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jun 2034
The knee: Henri Koide out for 57 days
57 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Västerås SK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match3 Jun 2034
No end in sight to Västerås SK's wait for a win
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Västerås SK has to find a result from somewhere.
Market5 Jun 2034
“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 Västerås SK, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout5 Jun 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Västerås SK may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad5 Jun 2034
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Västerås SK can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Jun 2034
Albin Sporrong 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.
Squad5 Jun 2034
Lucas Sibelius 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.
Player ratings5 Jun 2034
Lucas Sibelius did the work nobody counts — 6.97
10 combined actions and 6.97. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Match3 Jun 2034
Late, late show earns Västerås SK a point
Minute 89, against BK Hacken, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.