Marked for Kostakis Artymatas
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 May 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad15 May 2028
Onisiforos Rousias and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Agia Napa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo Miladinović 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.
Boardroom15 May 2028
Wages swallow 298% of the Agia Napa income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Squad15 May 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Agia Napa can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout15 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tiago Gonçalves, and the manager let it.
Market15 May 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout15 May 2028
Eduardo Souza asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad15 May 2028
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Agia Napa would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Apr 2028
9 matches without a win for Agia Napa
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Agia Napa are no longer polite ones.
Match17 Apr 2028
Full time on the season at Agia Napa
Position 14 on 19 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Squad17 Apr 2028
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.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Agia Napa may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market17 Apr 2028
“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 Agia Napa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad17 Apr 2028
“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; Agia Napa are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Danilo Miladinović and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom17 Apr 2028
Wages swallow 287% of the Agia Napa income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Angelos Zioulis 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Gustav Johansson out for 16 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Agia Napa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match18 Mar 2028
The wait goes on for Agia Napa
6 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.
Market20 Mar 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Agia Napa can pretend not to have heard.
Match18 Mar 2028
Agia Napa cannot find the net
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Onisiforos Rousias and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Danilo Miladinović 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.
Boardroom20 Mar 2028
Wages eat 279% of everything Agia Napa earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match18 Mar 2028
Digenis Morfou left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Feb 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market21 Feb 2028
“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 Agia Napa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Onisiforos Rousias and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at Agia Napa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo Miladinović 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.
Boardroom21 Feb 2028
232% of the income goes out in wages at Agia Napa
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Match19 Feb 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Jason Ioannou chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Market21 Feb 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Danilo Miladinović signs something — a contract at Agia Napa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.