Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yassine El Ouatki will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Viitorul the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Anes Rušević 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.
Marked 8.44 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Viitorul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
92 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Viitorul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: IF Elfsborg will make the call about Claudiu Mihaila this week. Viitorul have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The chase for Ionuţ Ailenei ended with $310.0K changing hands and Voluntari out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
Viitorul spend $310.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $310.0K for Ionuţ Ailenei, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Viitorul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Carvalho 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“I watch every Viitorul game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Bucharest runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Viitorul 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Javier Calle 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Viitorul, and 0 appearances in 30 say he has earned the hearing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Viitorul can pretend not to have heard.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Viitorul will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Viitorul game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Aris Thessaloniki runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Viitorul have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Razvan Chiriches 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
SquadWords at Viitorul training over how hard people work
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Viitorul have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 69 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
2‑2 against Estoril Praia, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Viitorul has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Up for the corner, and Ionut Coman delivers — 7.94
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ionut Coman scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tobías Barrionuevo is living that version at Viitorul, and it tends to show in the first month.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Viitorul, 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 Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Viitorul will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
4‑4 against Antalyaspor, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Razvan Chiriches was at the centre of the description.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Antalyaspor the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Viitorul will enjoy reviewing.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Viitorul are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Up for the corner, and Ionut Coman delivers — 7.92
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ionut Coman scored, was marked 7.92, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Viitorul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Carvalho 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.
“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; Viitorul are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Sergiu Stanciu had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and FCSB were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Alex Baird: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
4 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.
Javier Calle 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Viitorul 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.” Viitorul have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The terraces15 Nov 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 22 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Viitorul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Carvalho 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Viitorul, and 0 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Viitorul will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
1‑1 against SC Freiburg, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Razvan Chiriches was at the centre of the description.
Two goals and a mark of 8.88 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Viitorul 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 Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Viitorul will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.67 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Razvan Chiriches. 2‑1 against Petrolul, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Viitorul game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Aris Thessaloniki runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 122 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑1 away to the standard of SC Freiburg. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Viitorul, and 4 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Viitorul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Carvalho 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.
Astra will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Vlad Marin has pre-agreed a move to Viitorul, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Ovidiu Chiriches knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Alex Ramku, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.54
A mark of 8.54 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Vlad Balasa 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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 Viitorul, and it is not being withdrawn.
Razvan Chiriches 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Viitorul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Carvalho 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 watch every Viitorul game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FCSB runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Universitatea Craiova defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Razvan Chiriches will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Viitorul escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
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.
Javier Calle 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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It needed Razvan Chiriches to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Dinamo Bucharest, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Viitorul lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bogdan Maxim 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
João Paulo 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 words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viitorul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.