Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Yeangel Montero 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Naxxar Lions and Hamrun Spartans, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Théo Kruger 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrej Kirovski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” David Galea after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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 Santa Lucia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kane Paul Farrugia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Santa Lucia 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Naxxar Lions can pretend not to have heard.
“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; Naxxar Lions are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Tarxien Rainbows in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Naxxar Lions 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.
“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 Santa Lucia know it.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Santa Lucia know now that the thought has arrived.
Áquila 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Artur Potiguar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Oliver Mifsud 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Patrick Formosa is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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 Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Théo Kruger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 20 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Naxxar Lions, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout14 Sep 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 Glenn Cilia to a room that had heard them before.
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.
“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 Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Naxxar Lions 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 Sekala Guehi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Naxxar Lions know it.
Yeangel Montero 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 Théo Kruger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The phone has started ringing about Andriy Vella again, and this time the name on the line is Santa Lucia. Naxxar Lions are listening politely and promising nothing.
Jean Carlos 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrej Kirovski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Santa Lucia, another week without a signature from Jean Carlos.
A loan enquiry to Tarxien Rainbows: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Santa Lucia have made the call to Sliema Wanderers. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Santa Lucia have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.