It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Navua know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
“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 The request is on a desk at Navua, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Navua know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Arami Manumanubhai has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Jack Wale has moved up it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Navua can pretend not to have heard.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kolinio Sivoki signs something — a contract at Navua or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutAkuila Singh knocks on the manager's door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Navua 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Navua can pretend not to have heard.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Samuela Matai is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Nobody at Navua 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ali Mekawir signs something — a contract at Navua or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
23 goals and a season average of 7.47 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Navua until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Vinal Prasad 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.
“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 Navua, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Navua have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deal with Lautoka is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Tailevu Naitasiri keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dave Tiko has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tevita Matai has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Navua 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 Navua they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Vinal Prasad 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.
At 14 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
8.15. 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.
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Navua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jovilisi Borisi 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.
Nobody at Navua 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.
134 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Navua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Navua, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Navua close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 0 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.
The deal with Ba is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mohammed Ledua will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Navua the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kolinio Sivoki is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 155 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.
Jovilisi Borisi 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Laisenia Nailatikau is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jovilisi Borisi is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Navua can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Tailevu Naitasiri have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kolinio Sivoki is on it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Navua has been clear about where Monit Chand stands, which is more than many ever get.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Jovilisi Borisi 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.
Nobody at Navua 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Jovilisi Borisi: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Navua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jovilisi Borisi 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.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Navua lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Navua this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Maleli Lal is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Misaele Tuisese has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Nobody at Navua 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.