Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zeleznicar Pancevo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Zeleznicar Pancevo have gone to Javor-Matis with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Zeleznicar Pancevo have done the hard part with Slavia Prague, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Nemanja Vidojević 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
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Miloš Kosanović's mistake
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levante this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Karl Etta Eyong signs something — a contract at Levante or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
They sit in position 19 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
Levante asked and Cultural Leonesa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Manu Sánchez 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Levante have no good answer.
Levante asked and Real Madrid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Miguel Baeza is living that version at Levante, and it tends to show in the first month.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.6M — a club that wants Ferland Mendy enough to be asked twice.
$480.0K on the table at Girona. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Manu Sánchez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Roberto Fernández is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Julen Ferrer 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Aimar Espinosa 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.