The Ilioupoli Chronicle
Boardroom15 May 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Ilioupoli
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Ilioupoli is running low.
Squad15 May 2028
Ersi Bode wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ilioupoli can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad15 May 2028
Tempers go at Ilioupoli
Elián Sosa 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.
Boardroom15 May 2028
Belts tighten at Ilioupoli
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad15 May 2028
Michalis Kouiroukidis 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.
Boardroom15 May 2028
95% of the income goes out in wages at Ilioupoli
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Squad15 May 2028
A season on the outside for Jorge Juliá
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Ilioupoli has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Market15 May 2028
The Maxime Pélican talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ilioupoli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout15 May 2028
Ersi Bode has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ersi Bode has written the date down.
In brief
- Market Ilias Kyritsis placed on the list
- The dugout Grigorios Mitroglou asks for a word with the manager
- The dugout Ben Wodskou keeps his manager's vote