Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Konstantinos Apostolakis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Giorgos Konstantakopoulos 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Kifisia will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Apostolos Tsilingiris 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.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Kifisia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Apostolos Tsilingiris 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.
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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Nobody at Kifisia 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 call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Kifisia would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
Alexis Duarte 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Kifisia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaime Sancho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
This is not rotation. Gerson Sousa has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Kifisia is pretending otherwise.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Aleks Petkov 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 Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Kifisia ran out of time with Panetolikos. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Position 5, 25 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
Kifisia and AEK have settled on $2.2M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Kifisia have gone to Panetolikos 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. PAOK have kept their man, and Kifisia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Kifisia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kifisia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutDaniel Weiß has become a man the manager trusts
MarketThe clock does Rubén Pérez’s negotiating for him
BoardroomThe Kifisia production line keeps running
The mood at Kifisia 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.
“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 Kifisia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kifisia have gone to OFI 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aleks Petkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Kifisia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Giorgos Konstantakopoulos 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.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.29, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Alexis Duarte, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aleks Petkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Apostolos Tsilingiris 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.91, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aleks Petkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Kifisia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Pavlos Torosidis to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konstantinos Apostolakis 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.
Giorgos Konstantakopoulos 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.
“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; Kifisia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad20 Nov 2028
8 new faces, and Kifisia are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Olympiacos B.
Something was said to Han Willhoft-King and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Giorgos Xenitidis’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Kifisia needing him to play as if none of it matters.
0‑3 against Marko, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Aleks Petkov 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Kifisia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Position 7, 12 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Alexis Duarte, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 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.
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.88, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mukhtar Barnawi, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Pavlos Torosidis kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Kalamata next, and one man in the Kifisia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kifisia scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Two goals and a mark of 8.92 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Apostolos Tsilingiris 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Konstantinos Apostolakis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Pavlos Torosidis could afford to be generous.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Konstantinos Apostolakis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Aleks Petkov 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 Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Mukhtar Barnawi has come out of that comparison in the side, and Kifisia have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The mood at Kifisia 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.
Giorgos Konstantakopoulos 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.
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.
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kifisia can pretend not to have heard.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $480.9K of what Kifisia paid for Vasilis Athanasiou is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Hellas Syros have accepted the money. What Kifisia do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Kifisia close the window on a squad of their own making
32 in and 17 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Diego García has, at Kifisia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aleks Petkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Achyronas-Onisilos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Kifisia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Doxa for Mukhtar Barnawi 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kifisia can pretend not to have heard.
Alexis Duarte 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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kifisia 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 Kifisia can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to Makedonikos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Rui Silva has, at Kifisia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
In brief
The dugoutChé Nunnely knocks on the manager's door
The name of Giorgos Sokos has come up in conversations Kifisia were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The deal with Levadiakos is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Alexis Duarte 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luciano Maidana and Kifisia agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AEL Larisa is saying, and nobody at Kifisia is enjoying the guessing.
“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 Kifisia hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Panathinaikos paid $120.0K and Kifisia took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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.
Mukhtar Barnawi 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Michalis Papadopoulos has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Manolis Karelis has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
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.
Johnson Eboh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleks Petkov 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Kifisia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kifisia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Kifisia 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 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.
Jeremy Antonisse 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johnson Eboh 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.
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 Tommaso Ravaglioli is on it.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mukhtar Barnawi is living that version at Kifisia, and it tends to show in the first month.
Jeremy Antonisse 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Stefan Stefanov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
Berat Djimsiti 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.
Al-Riyadh left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sultan Al-Sheikh to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Boardroom17 Jan 2028
Nobody arrives at Al-Diriyah until somebody leaves
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Al-Diriyah this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Turki Al-Sultan clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Diriyah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Diriyah they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Diriyah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Turki Al-Sultan has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Diriyah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Al-Diriyah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Al-Mahdawi 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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 124 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 rotation. Saleh Al-Rahmani has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Al-Diriyah is pretending otherwise.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Al-Diriyah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yousef Fawaz 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Azizbek Usmonov's mistake
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Al-Diriyah, and both men came out saying it was fine.
131 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Al-Diriyah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Diriyah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Al-Taawoun left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Al-Diriyah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yousef Fawaz 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al-Diriyah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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 dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Turki Al-Sultan left the room before anybody could ask which.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Diriyah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Berat Djimsiti 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Al-Diriyah training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yousef Fawaz 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.
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 Hisham Al-Dubais is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Issam Al-Qarni’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Al-Diriyah needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Meshari Al-Nemer signs something — a contract at Al-Diriyah or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Saleh Al-Rahmani trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
7 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgos Apalodimas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Turki Al-Sultan left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Al-Diriyah have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Al-Diriyah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 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.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Al-Diriyah know now that the thought has arrived.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al-Diriyah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yousef Fawaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Al-Diriyah people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Diriyah they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Diriyah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nasser Al-Mansour has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Faisal Al-Mutairi had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al-Diriyah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
SquadBehruz Islomov falls out with a teammate over standards