Marked for Stefan Deac
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom31 May 2032
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $12.8M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Squad31 May 2032
Alex Cîşlariu 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.
Squad31 May 2032
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 dugout31 May 2032
The manager makes an example of Martin Minev
“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.
Market31 May 2032
The Edgar Cadar story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Edgar Cadar signs something — a contract at Câmpulung Muscel or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market31 May 2032
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout31 May 2032
Alex Cîşlariu asks for a word with the manager
“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.
Market31 May 2032
The clock does Ade Kristiano’s negotiating for him
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Câmpulung Muscel could ask drops and the wages Ade Kristiano can ask rise.
Squad31 May 2032
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Câmpulung Muscel will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces24 May 2032
Anger at Câmpulung Muscel 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.
Boardroom24 May 2032
Pressure builds in the Câmpulung Muscel boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match24 May 2032
Position 15 on 50 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Player ratings24 May 2032
Stefan Deac, 17, steals the show — 7.67
Marked 7.67 at 17, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad24 May 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Câmpulung Muscel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces24 May 2032
The crowd has taken to Stefan Deac
At 17 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.
Match22 May 2032
It finished 2‑0, and it was Stefan Deac’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Câmpulung Muscel.
Player ratings24 May 2032
Ninety minutes of Nikita Bokov at his very best
Marked 8.24. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Câmpulung Muscel.
Player ratings24 May 2032
Successful dribbles: 16. 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
Upbeat
The terraces18 Aug 2031
Supporters organise against the Câmpulung Muscel board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Stefan Dragusin damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Market18 Aug 2031
Robert Rusu hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Câmpulung Muscel can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout18 Aug 2031
Stefan Deac: 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.” Câmpulung Muscel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Mihai Orban 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.
Transfer targets18 Aug 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Elis Rasck 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 terraces18 Aug 2031
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Jun 2031
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Câmpulung Muscel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market16 Jun 2031
The bid was some way short and Câmpulung Muscel did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
The deal with FK Csíkszereda 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.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Mihai Orban 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 Câmpulung Muscel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
Câmpulung Muscel asked and Gloria Bistrița said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom16 Jun 2031
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Squad16 Jun 2031
“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; Câmpulung Muscel are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Harry Shield 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 dugout16 Jun 2031
The manager makes an example of Stefan Deac
“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.