Kelvin Pires 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at SJK 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at SJK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Ljung 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 SJK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at SJK 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.
The mood at IFK Mariehamn 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.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IFK Mariehamn can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from HJK for Pontus Lindgren 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
In brief
Player ratingsMarlo Hyvönen was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Supporters turn on the $880.0K sale of Oskari Väistö
He is going to HJK, the club has $880.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Ljung was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Add another name to the list: Haka have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Amidou Traoré. The answer from SJK has not changed — yet.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Sebastian Dahlström will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at IFK Mariehamn escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. IFK Mariehamn have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from HJK for Nikos Dosis 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.
Add another name to the list: SJK have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Tuomas Koivisto. The answer from IFK Mariehamn has not changed — yet.
Marked 8.47 — 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.
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.
The clubs have shaken hands with IFK Mariehamn; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Ljung 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jaakko Moisio and SJK agree another 3 years.
The dugout2 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Juhani Pukki to a room that had heard them before.
At 22 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. KTP tried to reorganise, IFK Mariehamn did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Player ratings28 Jun 2027
Adam Larsson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. 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.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Juhani Ojala could afford to be generous.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Nobody at IFK Mariehamn is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IFK Mariehamn they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Luke Pearce
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IFK Mariehamn they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. GAIS have kept their man, and IFK Mariehamn go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yeboah Amankwah is on it.
The name of Jiri Nissinen has come up in conversations IFK Mariehamn were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kano Pillars have kept their man, and IFK Mariehamn go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at IFK Mariehamn would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Miska Ylitolva arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around IFK Mariehamn people have started saying his name in the past tense.
IFK Mariehamn have gone to Ilves with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Lahti have kept their man, and IFK Mariehamn go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
IFK Mariehamn have made the call to BK Hacken. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Nobody at IFK Mariehamn 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at IFK Mariehamn would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Add another name to the list: JIPPO have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jelle van der Heyden. The answer from IFK Mariehamn has not changed — yet.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. IFK Mariehamn will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
IFK Mariehamn have made the call to PK-35. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Leo Andersson is on it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at IFK Mariehamn would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. IFK Mariehamn will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marlo Hyvönen and IFK Mariehamn agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Arvid Bergvik is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Arvid Lundberg trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at IFK Mariehamn. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jiri Nissinen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Emmanuel Patut’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nikos Dosis is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Tuure Siira watches a signing take the shirt he was promised
At 32 the pathway was supposed to be open. Instead IFK Mariehamn went to the market, and a local readership is asking the question the academy staff are too diplomatic to ask out loud.
In brief
The dugoutYeboah Amankwah has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.