Isikeli Nabenia

Central Defender - Tailevu Naitasiri
27 Mar 2030
Wednesday
Process

Marked for Isikeli Nabenia

188 Edition

The Tailevu Naitasiri Gazette

4 Mar 2030
From our football correspondent Steady

Market

Ushant Lal hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tailevu Naitasiri can pretend not to have heard.

Market

Only the photograph left for Tito Verevou

Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tito Verevou will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tailevu Naitasiri the goodbyes have quietly begun.

Squad

Sikeli Tuiloma in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tailevu Naitasiri this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Boardroom

5 academy players handed senior numbers at Tailevu Naitasiri

The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.

Boardroom

The numbers do not look good at Tailevu Naitasiri

Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.

Market

Tailevu Naitasiri promote Isikeli Nabenia from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Isikeli Nabenia 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.

Market

Laisenia Cama steps up from the Tailevu Naitasiri academy

There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Laisenia Cama has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.

Squad

Words at Tailevu Naitasiri training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ushant Lal 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.

Match

Late, late show earns Tailevu Naitasiri a point

Minute 87, against Ba, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.

In brief