“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Vlašim can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Bojan Đorđić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Jakub Kolísek 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Pierce Charles 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 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 month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Pierce Charles is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market8 Mar 2027
Marc Filip returns from a loan that taught him nothing
0 appearances and 0 clean sheets. A goalkeeper learns his job by playing it, and a season that gave him neither the games nor the shut-outs is a year taken off the front of a career.
Something was said to Stefan Dražić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at CFR Cluj 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.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at CFR Cluj until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CFR Cluj can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
CFR Cluj asked and Universitatea Craiova said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I did not go to Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț to sit and watch. I want to come back to CFR Cluj and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 25 matches say the rest.
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at CFR Cluj training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christopher Braun 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.
Ciprian Deac 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CFR Cluj can pretend not to have heard.
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 CFR Cluj have had the benefit of it.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Andrei Cordea 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ASA Târgu Mureș have kept their man, and CFR Cluj go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ionuţ Dinu 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CFR Cluj, another week without a signature from Andrei Cordea.
“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 CFR Cluj, and 0 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
At 40 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 CFR Cluj, and 0 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Adrian Păun. 2‑0 against Metaloglobus Bucharest, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christopher Braun was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ciprian Deac 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.