71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ismaily lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Arab Contractors will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ismaily were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Adam El Mallah, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.59
A mark of 8.59 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Achraf Dari 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.
Marked 8.92 — 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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 Ismaily have had the benefit of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ismaily this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Talib Sibi is living that version at Ismaily, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HNK Rijeka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at HNK Rijeka training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chris Smalling 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason HNK Rijeka will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Rijeka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HNK Rijeka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 HNK Rijeka, and 3 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
0 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 127 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Rijeka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Toni Fruk 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 HNK Rijeka, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Dominik Yankov’s exile
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Rijeka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HNK Rijeka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at HNK Rijeka training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chris Smalling 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 HNK Rijeka, and 5 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. HNK Rijeka know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Komnen Andrić’s exile
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HNK Rijeka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at HNK Rijeka hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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 watch every HNK Rijeka game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Minsk runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.