Eric Barrios damages knee ligaments — 112 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 112 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Samtredia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Ruben Gauto 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.
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.
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.
Eric Barrios damages knee ligaments — 119 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 119 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.
Raul Baratelia 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.
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.
Where he used to play does most of his talking for him at Samtredia. The room defers to it, the kids study it, and the only thing that can puncture it is a bad month.
“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 The request is on a desk at Samtredia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Eric Barrios 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.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Samtredia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
48 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Samtredia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Samtredia, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Samtredia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Otar Gagnidze has his answer from Samtredia; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“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 Samtredia know it.
Avtandil Gvelesiani 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.
106 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Samtredia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Samtredia can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Samtredia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 Tsotne Chikovani is on 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 Samtredia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Samtredia would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Samtredia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Chikhura for Otar Gagnidze 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Samtredia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Samuel Schlupp has, at Samtredia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tskhinvali have kept their man, and Samtredia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I watch every Samtredia game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Batumi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
121 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Samtredia 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 Samtredia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Samtredia can pretend not to have heard.
Julen Cordero 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.
Samtredia have made the call to Tskhinvali. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Sergi Abramishvili is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
The offer from Hearts of Oak for Souleymane Tamboura 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Liberty Professionals have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Liberty Professionals have done the hard part with Barau, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bourama Togola is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Souleymane Tamboura was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Afriyie Boakye is on it.
In brief
The dugoutAbdul Schlupp asks for a word with the manager