Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niclas Anspach will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Heidenheim the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mohamed Silmi is living that version at Heidenheim, and it tends to show in the first month.
VfL Wolfsburg left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Heidenheim training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benedikt Gimber 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.
Gabriel Barbosa 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.
Portimonense paid $490.0K and Farense took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Portimonense paid $220.0K and Farense took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
In brief
SquadWords at Farense training over how hard people work
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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 The request is on a desk at Farense, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gabriel Barbosa 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Farense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cláudio Falcão 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Caio Emerson has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Farense have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriel Barbosa signs something — a contract at Farense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Farense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Farense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduardo Quaresma 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Farense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑1 to Sporting CP B, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Farense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Remi Matthews 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.
“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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Mohamed Silmi returns from a loan that gave him nothing
4 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriel Barbosa signs something — a contract at Farense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Farense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Farense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduardo Quaresma 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.
The loan was meant to give him football. 4 games and 0 goals later he is back at Farense no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Marked 4.61. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
“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 Farense, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nikola Gjorgjev 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriel Barbosa signs something — a contract at Farense or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Cláudio Falcão 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Farense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaiminho 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.
“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 Farense, and 3 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
Gabriel Barbosa 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gabriel Barbosa. 2‑1 against Lusitânia Lourosa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I did not go to Portimonense to sit and watch. I want to come back to Farense and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 17 matches say the rest.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Nikola Gjorgjev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.64. 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Alex Pinto 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Farense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Cláudio Falcão 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.
“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 Farense, and 1 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
Nacional go through and Portimonense go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portimonense have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Marked 8.42 — 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.
Emre Ünüvar 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 watch every Portimonense game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pianese runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
70 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Farense lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Farense can pretend not to have heard.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Remi Matthews is living that version at Farense, and it tends to show in the first month.
Ricardinho 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.