Position 9, 7 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Paul Hagi 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.
Éder Munive 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 young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Petrolul who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Petrolul can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Paul Hagi 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Éder Munive 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.
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Petrolul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paul Hagi 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrolul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The offer from Rudes for Dragos Nita 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Petrolul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 3‑2 win over Pandurii, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Paul Hagi 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Dragos Keseru has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.