Marked for Tigran Sarkisyan
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market13 Aug 2029
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Tarxien Rainbows waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Mosta is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market13 Aug 2029
Najran come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Mosta did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Tempers go at Mosta
Emmanuel Ugwu 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Words at Mosta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diamanka Senghor 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
31 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
“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.
Market13 Aug 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mosta know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market13 Aug 2029
“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.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
Jake Cachia has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Mosta 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Aug 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Willian Salomão
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mosta lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market6 Aug 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 The request is on a desk at Mosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market6 Aug 2029
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Philip Cutajar is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Tempers go at Mosta
Matthew Bolaños 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 Aug 2029
Words at Mosta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giancarlo 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.
Market6 Aug 2029
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Mosta have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market6 Aug 2029
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Kenneth Camilleri has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Mosta.
The dugout6 Aug 2029
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Jul 2029
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mosta lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market16 Jul 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mosta can pretend not to have heard.
Market16 Jul 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Mosta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Edgaras Simkus is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words exchanged at Mosta
Matthew Bolaños 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 Jul 2029
At 32 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 4 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
The dugout16 Jul 2029
The manager makes an example of Willian Salomão
“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.
The dugout16 Jul 2029
Emmanuel Ugwu knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mosta, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market16 Jul 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mosta know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.