There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Sliema Wanderers will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Agustín Campos scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stipe Brekalo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sliema Wanderers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Daniel Moreira 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean Borg 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Sliema Wanderers will not try tonight.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sliema Wanderers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sliema Wanderers can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sliema Wanderers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Agustín Campos 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Baptiste N'Guessan 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Adrian Ellul and Sliema Wanderers agree another 4 years.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sliema Wanderers 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 Sliema Wanderers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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; Sliema Wanderers are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sliema Wanderers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emile Samyn 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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sliema Wanderers 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 Sliema Wanderers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Agustín Campos 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.
Squad14 Aug 2034
Denys Yefremov has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 5 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadJean Borg falls out with a teammate over standards
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sliema Wanderers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sliema Wanderers can pretend not to have heard.
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Frank Scerri will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sliema Wanderers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Agustín Campos 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.
Add another name to the list: Marsaxlokk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matteo Buttigieg. The answer from Sliema Wanderers has not changed — yet.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Melwin Eker has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadEmile Samyn falls out with a teammate over standards