A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zabbar St. Patrick will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Strahinja Jovančić 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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zabbar St. Patrick will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Zabbar St. Patrick have done the hard part with Floriana, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$40.0K on the table at Hamrun Spartans. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Zabbar St. Patrick offered $15.0K; Birkirkara said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Strahinja Jovančić 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.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zabbar St. Patrick lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zabbar St. Patrick they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Strahinja Jovančić 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hibernians in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luís Mota signs something — a contract at Zabbar St. Patrick or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zabbar St. Patrick, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 7 on 30 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.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and Floriana were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Zabbar St. Patrick are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Ryan Xuereb was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Zabbar St. Patrick dressing room was either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zabbar St. Patrick will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Zabbar St. Patrick, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Miloš Jovičić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zabbar St. Patrick the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Sliema Wanderers next, and one man in the Zabbar St. Patrick dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Zabbar St. Patrick would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bruno Figueiredo signs something — a contract at Zabbar St. Patrick or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Zabbar St. Patrick. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luís Mota provided it, and the 9.09 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Miloš Jovičić did not need any: 8.58, 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 Zabbar St. Patrick 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Zabbar St. Patrick is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Miloš Jovičić 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.
Marked 8.01 — 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.
“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 Zabbar St. Patrick, and it is not being withdrawn.
13 in and 6 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Bruno Figueiredo 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
He is 15, and nobody at Zabbar St. Patrick signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.