Marked for Anastasios Tachtsidis
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Apr 2031
Siddick Aboubakar and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Apr 2031
Antonio Toral 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.
Boardroom14 Apr 2031
Wages swallow 103% of the Panargiakos 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.
Squad14 Apr 2031
5 new faces, and Panargiakos are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout14 Apr 2031
“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.
Boardroom14 Apr 2031
Panargiakos can only buy what they sell
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
The dugout14 Apr 2031
“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.
The dugout14 Apr 2031
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 Kostas Panagiotou is on it.
Market14 Apr 2031
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Javi Díaz’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Mar 2031
“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.
Squad10 Mar 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panargiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Mar 2031
5 new faces, and Panargiakos are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout10 Mar 2031
“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.
Squad10 Mar 2031
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Panargiakos would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market10 Mar 2031
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Feb 2031
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Giannis Kapetanos reports back to Panargiakos with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The dugout10 Feb 2031
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market10 Feb 2031
“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.
Transfer targets10 Feb 2031
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AEK is saying, and nobody at Panargiakos is enjoying the guessing.
Boardroom10 Feb 2031
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nikos Christou has agreed terms with Chania for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad10 Feb 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panargiakos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Feb 2031
Lachlin Lambert arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lachlin Lambert has, at Panargiakos, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Boardroom10 Feb 2031
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad10 Feb 2031
Words at Panargiakos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Toral 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.