“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 The request is on a desk at Tirana, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tirana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadRedon Xhixha falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 The request is on a desk at Tirana, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tirana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at Tirana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Álvarez 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 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 Tirana know it.
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.
7 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Freddy Álvarez 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tirana can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tirana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Tirana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Redon Xhixha 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tirana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mathieu Rivière has just signed for Tirana, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Tirana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Álvarez 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 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 Tirana know it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tirana can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“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 Tirana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Basilio Basilio 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.
In brief
SquadFreddy Álvarez falls out with a teammate over standards
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tirana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Tirana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Freddy Álvarez 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.
Mikkel Forum is 20, and Tirana have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Cavid Abdullayev is 20, and Tirana have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZAL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.