Position 12 and 8 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Naxxar Lions can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Sekala Guehi 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Neil Pace Cocks has his answer from Naxxar Lions; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Cedric 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Naxxar Lions training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sekala Guehi 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 at Naxxar Lions 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.
Cedric 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 this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.34, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Naxxar Lions training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sekala Guehi 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.
Position 11 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Naxxar Lions is running low.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Yeangel Montero was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The young player of the month award goes to a 15-year-old at Naxxar Lions who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.