28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Team Wellington lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Team Wellington is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Monty Van Hattum 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Team Wellington they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jefferson Ramos 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Team Wellington is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Monty Van Hattum 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.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Auckland City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Auckland City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Jan 2030
David Yoo 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.