Marked for Antonis Nicolaou
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Mar 2027
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Nea Salamis lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match6 Mar 2027
Beaten 1‑4 by MEAP Nisou, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Florent Hanin commits to Nea Salamis for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nea Salamis can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Nea Salamis now.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Dida 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 dugout8 Mar 2027
Dida gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Denis Thomalla will call it something else in private.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
Nobody left the Nea Salamis dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Mar 2027
Antonis Nicolaou damages knee ligaments — 24 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 24 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Pressure builds in the Nea Salamis boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Home is on Dida's mind
“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; Nea Salamis are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Lucas Gaona in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nea Salamis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Nea Salamis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Artiles 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.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Denis Thomalla
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market1 Mar 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nea Salamis, another week without a signature from Dida.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.71 on the card, and the Nea Salamis support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Feb 2027
Antonis Nicolaou damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Florent Hanin, 37, rolls back the years — 7.94
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Aloïs Confais goes up and wins it — 7.80
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.80 for the rest of it.
Match20 Feb 2027
7 matches without a win, and then this, against Iraklis Gerolakkou. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Dida 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and José Artiles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
Wages swallow 227% of the Nea Salamis 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.
Match20 Feb 2027
It finished 2‑0, and it was Gabriel Lima’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Nea Salamis.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Feb 2027
Antonis Nicolaou damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match15 Feb 2027
Every point is an argument now for Nea Salamis
Position 15 and 19 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.
Match13 Feb 2027
7 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.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 7.19, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alberto Varo, and the manager let it.
Match13 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Vasilis Lampropoulos 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.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.