Marked for Carlos Frederico
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Apr 2029
Every point is an argument now for AEL Larisa
Position 12 and 20 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Boardroom2 Apr 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at AEL Larisa
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market2 Apr 2029
“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 The request is on a desk at AEL Larisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Erick Cabaco in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Apr 2029
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 Oct 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at AEL Larisa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market9 Oct 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEL Larisa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Joel Roca runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Davíð Kristján Ólafsson and AEL Larisa agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Apostolis Christopoulos 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.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Words at AEL Larisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davíð Kristján Ólafsson 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.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Marked 8.86. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at AEL Larisa.
Squad9 Oct 2028
“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.
Match7 Oct 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Kifisia leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces25 Sep 2028
Anger at AEL Larisa spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Carlos Frederico: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEL Larisa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market25 Sep 2028
Mario Cordero 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 AEL Larisa can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Erick Cabaco 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at AEL Larisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davíð Kristján Ólafsson 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.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Ninety minutes of Savvas Mourgos at his very best
Marked 8.54. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at AEL Larisa.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
One of those days for Joel Roca
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.19, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Jul 2028
“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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Babacar Djitté Cissé is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market10 Jul 2028
Asteras are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. AEL Larisa will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at AEL Larisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davíð Kristján Ólafsson 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“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; AEL Larisa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Jun 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad12 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jun 2028
A move Diego Abreu Muñoz would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Diego Abreu Muñoz is living that version at AEL Larisa, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market12 Jun 2028
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at AEL Larisa has been clear about where Apostolis Christopoulos stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad12 Jun 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Anderson Prestes and AEL Larisa agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market12 Jun 2028
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
In brief
-
Market
AEL Larisa shop where it costs nothing
-
Boardroom
The AEL Larisa production line keeps running
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces5 Jun 2028
The mood at AEL Larisa has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
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.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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.
Market5 Jun 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Erick Ferigra 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 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bartosz Bugała is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Jun 2028
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.
Market5 Jun 2028
No place for Gaël Kakuta in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gaël Kakuta has his answer from AEL Larisa; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad5 Jun 2028
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.