A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Copenhagen will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Copenhagen people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Copenhagen can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Copenhagen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Copenhagen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Paul Puscas 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.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FC Copenhagen can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
The dugoutAmar Dedić has become a man the manager trusts
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Copenhagen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Copenhagen they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Copenhagen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Copenhagen will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FC Copenhagen have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at FC Copenhagen, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at FC Copenhagen until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Copenhagen heard it as anything else.
FC Copenhagen offered $1.1M; FC Midtjylland said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Paul Puscas 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.
In brief
SquadAmar Dedić falls out with a teammate over standards
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rodrigo Bentancur wants continental football; whether FC Copenhagen can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Copenhagen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Paul Puscas 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amar Dedić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 goals in 8 games at Adana Demirspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at FC Copenhagen updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Copenhagen know it.
In brief
Squad5 FC Copenhagen players away with their countries
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and FC Copenhagen supporters have already started telling it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Copenhagen heard it as anything else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Copenhagen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Paul Puscas 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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Julien Masson has just signed for FC Copenhagen, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad17 Sep 2029
Words at FC Copenhagen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amar Dedić 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FC Copenhagen have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Copenhagen can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Deadline passes with 31 signed and 32 gone
That is the business done at FC Copenhagen until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The offer from Medeama for Majeed Ashimeru was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Copenhagen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Tijuana waiting with a shirt. Nobody at FC Copenhagen is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Copenhagen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The offer from Helsingborg for Yoram Zague was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amar Dedić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.