Marked for Florian Thomas
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Nov 2040
Timothée Pembélé damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Squad26 Nov 2040
A fracture rules Lukáš Vorlický out for 47 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Slavia Prague will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad26 Nov 2040
“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.
Match21 Nov 2040
1‑3 against Slovacko, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match24 Nov 2040
No end in sight to Slavia Prague's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Slavia Prague has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad26 Nov 2040
David Zima 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 ratings26 Nov 2040
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings26 Nov 2040
Marked 8.04 — 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.
Boardroom26 Nov 2040
Wages eat 100% of everything Slavia Prague earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Oct 2040
A knee injury of the worst kind for Timothée Pembélé
76 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Slavia Prague lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad15 Oct 2040
A fracture rules Lukáš Vorlický out for 91 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Slavia Prague will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings15 Oct 2040
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market15 Oct 2040
Jan Vydra has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slavia Prague they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Oct 2040
David Zima 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.
Match13 Oct 2040
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Slavia Prague and Zbrojovka Brno in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad15 Oct 2040
John Mercado 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.
Match13 Oct 2040
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Slavia Prague did not have in the autumn.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Oct 2040
Timothée Pembélé damages knee ligaments — 84 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
Squad8 Oct 2040
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match6 Oct 2040
No end in sight to Slavia Prague's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Slavia Prague has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad8 Oct 2040
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Slavia Prague may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad8 Oct 2040
David Zima 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 Slavia Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market8 Oct 2040
Only the photograph left for Ales Coufal
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ales Coufal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slavia Prague the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom8 Oct 2040
Viktoria Plzen will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Daniele Lulaj has pre-agreed a move to Slavia Prague, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Player ratings8 Oct 2040
Both jobs done by Adi Yona — 6.78
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. 10 actions, 6.78, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Market8 Oct 2040
He is 19, and nobody at Slavia Prague signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces10 Oct 2039
The mood at Kifisia has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad10 Oct 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad10 Oct 2039
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match8 Oct 2039
4 matches without a win for Kifisia
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Kifisia are no longer polite ones.
Squad10 Oct 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Squad10 Oct 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
Match8 Oct 2039
Kifisia are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Match8 Oct 2039
0‑2 to AEL Larisa, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings10 Oct 2039
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Sep 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market26 Sep 2039
Only the photograph left for Florian Thomas
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Florian Thomas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kifisia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad26 Sep 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Match24 Sep 2039
Beaten 3‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Match24 Sep 2039
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Kifisia and PAOK in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad26 Sep 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces12 Sep 2039
The mood at Kifisia has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad12 Sep 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match10 Sep 2039
Kifisia leaking at the back
8 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad12 Sep 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
Squad12 Sep 2039
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Sep 2039
“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.
Match10 Sep 2039
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market12 Sep 2039
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Apostolos Papastathopulos has his answer from Kifisia; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market12 Sep 2039
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zacharias Petousis signs something — a contract at Kifisia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Aug 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market29 Aug 2039
Florian Thomas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kifisia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match27 Aug 2039
Kifisia leaking at the back
6 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad29 Aug 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Match27 Aug 2039
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Kifisia and Aris Thessaloniki, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match27 Aug 2039
2‑4 to Aris Thessaloniki, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom29 Aug 2039
Graduation day at Kifisia
12 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad29 Aug 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
Market29 Aug 2039
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dimitrios Tsadjaris 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Aug 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom1 Aug 2039
Pressure builds in the Kifisia boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market1 Aug 2039
Florian Thomas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kifisia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad1 Aug 2039
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Donny Promes is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad1 Aug 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Squad1 Aug 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Jul 2039
The scrutiny sharpens at Kifisia
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Kifisia is running low.
Market4 Jul 2039
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kifisia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Jul 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Squad4 Jul 2039
Donny Promes is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad4 Jul 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
Squad4 Jul 2039
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Efthymios Lampropoulos and Kifisia agree another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces20 Jun 2039
The mood at Kifisia has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad20 Jun 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Squad20 Jun 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Jun 2039
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kifisia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom6 Jun 2039
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Kifisia can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom6 Jun 2039
Crisis meeting at Kifisia
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Boardroom6 Jun 2039
The scrutiny sharpens at Kifisia
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Kifisia is running low.
Market6 Jun 2039
Olympiacos come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Kifisia did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad6 Jun 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Pontikos 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.
Squad6 Jun 2039
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market6 Jun 2039
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Vasileios Papagiannopoulos has his answer from Kifisia; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 May 2039
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kifisia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad9 May 2039
Tiago Manso 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.
Squad9 May 2039
Turaç Böke 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Apr 2039
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kifisia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad11 Apr 2039
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kifisia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad11 Apr 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Mar 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Mar 2039
Stan Sainsbury: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kifisia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad14 Mar 2039
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Feb 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 121 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match19 Feb 2039
Kifisia win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Levadiakos will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings21 Feb 2039
A brace, and Zacharias Petousis takes the afternoon — 8.41
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Zacharias Petousis provided it, and the 8.41 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad21 Feb 2039
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Feb 2039
Michalis Pardalos 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.
Match19 Feb 2039
Kifisia leaking at the back
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Match19 Feb 2039
Levadiakos made Kifisia work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad21 Feb 2039
Turaç Böke 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.
Player ratings21 Feb 2039
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Feb 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 128 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings14 Feb 2039
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.90, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match12 Feb 2039
4 matches without a win for Kifisia
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Kifisia are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Feb 2039
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match12 Feb 2039
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Kifisia and Olympiacos in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad14 Feb 2039
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Turaç Böke 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.
Match12 Feb 2039
Kifisia are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Squad14 Feb 2039
Turaç Böke 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.
Player ratings14 Feb 2039
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.32, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Feb 2039
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 135 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Feb 2039
Tiago Manso 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.
Match5 Feb 2039
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Kifisia and Panathinaikos, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match5 Feb 2039
Panathinaikos left with the points after a 2‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Feb 2039
Turaç Böke 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.
Player ratings7 Feb 2039
Ninety minutes of Aaron Nour at his very best
Marked 8.34. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Kifisia.
Squad7 Feb 2039
The manager makes an example of Luciano Maidana
“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.
Player ratings7 Feb 2039
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Feb 2039
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Dimitris Theodoridis’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces31 Jan 2039
Anger at Kifisia spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad31 Jan 2039
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad31 Jan 2039
Tiago Manso 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 Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.