Marked for Geray Motta
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jun 2034
Bogdan Markov damages knee ligaments — 43 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Squad5 Jun 2034
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Vikingur have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market5 Jun 2034
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Haraldur Ágúst Brynjarsson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Vikingur the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match3 Jun 2034
No end in sight to Vikingur's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Vikingur has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad5 Jun 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vikingur this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jun 2034
Words at Vikingur training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valdimar Þór Ingimundarson 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.
Market5 Jun 2034
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Vikingur has been clear about where Sindri Þór Ingimarsson stands, which is more than many ever get.
Player ratings5 Jun 2034
Marked 7.60 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Vikingur had the best player on the pitch.
Match3 Jun 2034
It needed Davide Bono to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Stjarnan, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market27 Dec 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.
Market27 Dec 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alianza Lima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market27 Dec 2032
The offer from UTC for Samuel Ezekiel 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.
Squad27 Dec 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alianza Lima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market27 Dec 2032
The name of Jefferson Churi has come up in conversations Alianza Lima were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad27 Dec 2032
Alan Cantero 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Dec 2032
3‑2 against Deportes Tolima, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Fernando Mimbacas was at the centre of the description.
Match11 Dec 2032
Fernando Mimbacas wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Fernando Mimbacas found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Deportes Tolima went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings13 Dec 2032
Two goals and a mark of 8.74 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad13 Dec 2032
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 Alianza Lima have had the benefit of it.
Market13 Dec 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 Alianza Lima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market13 Dec 2032
The offer from UTC for Chidiebere Nwobodo 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.
Match11 Dec 2032
Alianza Lima make home a hard place to visit
11 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.
Market13 Dec 2032
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Pablo Minissale wants continental football; whether Alianza Lima can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad13 Dec 2032
Sebastián Jaume 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.