Marked for Ever Gómez
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Dec 2032
Zalán Kerezsi breaks a bone — 56 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings6 Dec 2032
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings6 Dec 2032
A brace, and Ivan Šaponjić takes the afternoon — 9.02
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ivan Šaponjić provided it, and the 9.02 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad6 Dec 2032
Peter Ambrose 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.
Squad6 Dec 2032
Words at Diosgyor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anderson Esiti 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.
Match4 Dec 2032
It finished 2‑0, and it was Ivan Šaponjić’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Diosgyor.
The dugout6 Dec 2032
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Dominik Fiola could afford to be generous.
The dugout6 Dec 2032
Peter Ambrose has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Diosgyor 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 dugout6 Dec 2032
Ever Gómez 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Nov 2032
Zalán Kerezsi breaks a bone — 79 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market15 Nov 2032
Ever Gómez hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Diosgyor can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Nov 2032
Peter Ambrose 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.
Squad15 Nov 2032
Anderson Esiti 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.
Match13 Nov 2032
MTK Budapest left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 Nov 2032
“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; Diosgyor are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout15 Nov 2032
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Dominik Fiola left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout15 Nov 2032
Ákos Kecskés has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Diosgyor 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 dugout15 Nov 2032
A promise honoured at Diosgyor
Something was said to Bálint Rideg and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Sep 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Szilárd Bokros
62 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Diosgyor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings13 Sep 2032
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.15, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market13 Sep 2032
Ever Gómez hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Diosgyor can pretend not to have heard.
Market13 Sep 2032
Diosgyor say no — this time
The offer from Rah Ahan for Guilherme Alves 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.
Squad13 Sep 2032
Words exchanged at Diosgyor
Ivan Šaponjić 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.
Match11 Sep 2032
The run at home goes on for Diosgyor
10 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings13 Sep 2032
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad13 Sep 2032
A row about effort at Diosgyor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yaroslav Kysil was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout13 Sep 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artem Somka, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Aug 2032
Szilárd Bokros damages knee ligaments — 83 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
Squad23 Aug 2032
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market23 Aug 2032
“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 Diosgyor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market23 Aug 2032
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad23 Aug 2032
Ivan Šaponjić 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.
Squad23 Aug 2032
Words at Diosgyor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaroslav Kysil 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.
Match21 Aug 2032
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout23 Aug 2032
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout23 Aug 2032
Ivan Šaponjić gets picked when it counts
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 Ivan Šaponjić is on it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Aug 2032
90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Diosgyor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market16 Aug 2032
“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.
Match14 Aug 2032
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Diosgyor did not have in the autumn.
Squad16 Aug 2032
Words exchanged at Diosgyor
Ivan Šaponjić 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.
Squad16 Aug 2032
Words at Diosgyor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anderson Esiti 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.
Match14 Aug 2032
Three points for Diosgyor, 1‑0 the final word against Bekescsaba in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings16 Aug 2032
Gábor Jurek was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.42. 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.
Player ratings16 Aug 2032
Marked 8.03 — 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.
Player ratings16 Aug 2032
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Jul 2032
111 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Diosgyor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad26 Jul 2032
Ivan Šaponjić 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.
Squad26 Jul 2032
Malyk Dembélé is a better footballer than he was
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.
Squad26 Jul 2032
Peter Ambrose has improved at 30, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The dugout26 Jul 2032
“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.
Market26 Jul 2032
No place for Ever Gómez in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ever Gómez has his answer from Diosgyor; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout26 Jul 2032
Peter Ambrose gets picked when it counts
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 Peter Ambrose is on it.
Looking ahead26 Jul 2032
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Anderson Esiti’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Diosgyor needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market26 Jul 2032
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Danilo Mitrović signs something — a contract at Diosgyor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.