“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FCSB can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FCSB have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juri Cisotti 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 FCSB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I did not go to Universitatea Craiova to sit and watch. I want to come back to FCSB and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Nobody at FCSB 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.
In brief
The dugoutBaba Alhassan asks for a word with the manager
Juri Cisotti 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.
Nobody at FCSB 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FCSB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
6 goals in 29 games at Frosinone — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at FCSB updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at FCSB. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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 Eddy Gnahoré is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FCSB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Risto Radunović plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
In brief
SquadBaba Alhassan is the talk of the training ground
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FCSB can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
George Iancu 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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Răzvan Udrea returns from a loan that taught him nothing
0 appearances and 0 clean sheets. A goalkeeper learns his job by playing it, and a season that gave him neither the games nor the shut-outs is a year taken off the front of a career.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FCSB know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FCSB have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 FCSB know it.
Juri Cisotti 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 sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
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.
“I watch every FCSB game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Universitatea Craiova runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market1 Mar 2027
A year in the wrong dressing room for Răzvan Udrea
He went out to keep goal every week and came back with 0 games and 0 of them shut out. Somebody at FCSB argued for this move last summer; nobody is arguing for it now.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juri Cisotti 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Alexandru Coman, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
80 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Viktoria Plzen have kept their man, and FCSB go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is interest, it is real, and it comes from the one direction that makes it a story rather than a transfer. FCSB supporters have already said what they think.
George Iancu 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.
Nobody at FCSB 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Baba Alhassan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
3‑0 against ND Gorica, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
140 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FCSB lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.66 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FCSB have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FCSB can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FCSB this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; FCSB are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
9 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.
Nobody at FCSB 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Abraham Marcus signs something — a contract at FCSB or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mamadou Thiam’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FCSB needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Joyskim Dawa has written the date down.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at FCSB and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
In brief
Looking aheadAn away day at CFR Cluj next for FCSB
George Iancu has gone, the accounts have $2.2M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Two goals and a mark of 7.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
FCSB have gone to Estrela da Amadora with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Astra did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $2.2M for George Iancu, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.2M for George Iancu, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
George Iancu 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.
He is going to Pandurii, the club has $1.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $405.0K — a club that wants Charles Petro enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Botosani this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud 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 Astra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$2.2M settles it between the clubs for George Iancu
Astra have accepted the money. What FCSB do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
He is going to Universitatea Craiova, the club has $3.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The offer from Alcione Milano for Natanaël Thio 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.
Universitatea Craiova pay $3.0M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Real Sociedad keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Juri Cisotti 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Botosani have kept their man, and FCSB go back to a list with one name crossed off it.