The words a physio says slowly. 125 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 Astra 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.
Marked 8.35 — 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.
Chances created: 5. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
0‑1 away to the standard of Groningen. 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Viitorul spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ronaldinho did not need any: 8.23, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
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 fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Dinamo Bucharest moved on, Mihai Nedelcearu reports back to Astra, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Ratiu 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 no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Pandurii defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Razvan Keseru, 17 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 94th minute. Botosani will replay every second of the added time for a week.
“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 Astra, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
Dorin Stanciu 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 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 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Ronaldinho 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.