Marked for Michael Iremitide
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
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 Apr 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Lushnja, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Enis Fazlagic 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 dugout5 Apr 2027
“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 dugout5 Apr 2027
Masimiliano Doda loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Masimiliano Doda's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Onome Onotafe 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 Lushnja, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
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.
Market5 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lushnja know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
The Lushnja dressing room answers
Whatever was said behind that door, it worked: the pressing is back, the arguing has stopped, and the manager’s job is being defended in the only language that counts.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces29 Mar 2027
The mood at Lushnja 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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Lushnja
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Lushnja is running low.
Market29 Mar 2027
Onome Onotafe 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 Lushnja can pretend not to have heard.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vinicius César is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad29 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lushnja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Lushnja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Onome Onotafe 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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Belts tighten at Lushnja
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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Vinicius César has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Lushnja 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Lushnja will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Kutbi Budo 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 Lushnja can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Enis Fazlagic 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“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; Lushnja are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Lushnja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Onome Onotafe 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 dugout8 Mar 2027
“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 Mar 2027
Adriatik Basha 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 Lushnja, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
Jurgen Peqini has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Lushnja 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Lushnja would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces1 Mar 2027
Anger at Lushnja 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.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Pressure builds in the Lushnja boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market1 Mar 2027
Onome Onotafe 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 Lushnja can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
Leon Kozi keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lushnja may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad1 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lushnja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lushnja know it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Lushnja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Onome Onotafe 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 dugout1 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Donart Ibraimi
“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.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Lushnja counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Lushnja now.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lushnja may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Lushnja
Enis Fazlagic and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
Wages swallow 157% of the Lushnja income
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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“I want to play”: Ildi Xhakaj speaks
“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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lushnja told Mujahid Ibrahim something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Masimiliano Doda has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Lushnja 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 dugout22 Feb 2027
Leon Kozi 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 Lushnja, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market22 Feb 2027
The name of Masimiliano Doda keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Lushnja say nothing, which says plenty.
Market22 Feb 2027
6 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Lushnja could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Klevi Qefalija and Lushnja agree another 4 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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; Lushnja are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad7 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lushnja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Onome Onotafe 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adriatik Basha, and the manager let it.
Market7 Dec 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lushnja, another week without a signature from Adriatik Basha.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
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 Bekim Daci to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match7 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Luftëtari spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Match7 Nov 2026
At last: Lushnja win one
8 matches without a win, and then this, against Luftëtari. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad9 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lushnja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match7 Nov 2026
A 2‑1 win over Luftëtari, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 7.96 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Lushnja had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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.” Bekim Daci kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
Nadon Kouassi 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 Lushnja can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 24 signed and 26 gone
That is the business done at Lushnja until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Lushnja
Enis Fazlagic and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Lushnja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Onome Onotafe 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“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.