99 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Szentlőrinc lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matteo Silvano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Szentlőrinc the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Szentlőrinc have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Add another name to the list: Diosgyor have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Márk Gyetván. The answer from Szentlőrinc has not changed — yet.
Everything agreed with MTK Budapest, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Ábris Sámson damages knee ligaments — 113 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 113 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Diosgyor waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Szentlőrinc is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Tiszakécske spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
141 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Szentlőrinc lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Szentlőrinc are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Szentlőrinc has been clear about where Matteo Silvano stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matteo Silvano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Szentlőrinc the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
Márk Gyetván 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.
“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; Szentlőrinc are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad30 Jun 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ábris Sámson 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.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Diosgyor waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Szentlőrinc is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Szentlőrinc have done the hard part with MTK Budapest, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ETO Győr have kept their man, and Szentlőrinc go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ábris Sámson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Szentlőrinc will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
This is not rotation. Daniel Cicaldau has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Szentlőrinc is pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Patrick Pejić 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.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“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 dugout16 Jun 2036
Ruben Haaland is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The mood at Szentlőrinc 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.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matteo Silvano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Szentlőrinc the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Matteo Silvano has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Ujpest will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Gergő Bánfalvi has pre-agreed a move to Szentlőrinc, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad2 Jun 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ábris Sámson 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.
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.
Márk Gyetván 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 Patrick Pejić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lukas Tunedal trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Szentlőrinc know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Gabriel Méndez has written the date down.
Matvii Kashuba 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.
Squad19 May 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ábris Sámson 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.
Something was said to Chidera Oparaocha and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Szentlőrinc know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The terraces5 May 2036
The mood at Szentlőrinc 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Szentlőrinc can pretend not to have heard.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Squad5 May 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Pejić 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Szentlőrinc have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Szentlőrinc can pretend not to have heard.
This is not rotation. Daniel Cicaldau has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Szentlőrinc is pretending otherwise.
Squad21 Apr 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ábris Sámson 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.
Matteo Silvano 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Szentlőrinc, and both men came out saying it was fine.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Szentlőrinc could ask drops and the wages Barnabás Bíró can ask rise.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Szentlőrinc they have already started talking about him 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 Szentlőrinc can pretend not to have heard.
Squad14 Apr 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Pejić 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ábris Sámson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout14 Apr 2036
The manager has not finished forgetting Ruben Haaland's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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 Attila Botka has written the date down.
In brief
BoardroomThe Szentlőrinc production line keeps running
SquadQuestions about Pieros Kolias on the training pitch
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.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad7 Apr 2036
Ábris Sámson 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.
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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Márk Gyetván 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Pejić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Szentlőrinc know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Gabriel Méndez has written the date down.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Adam Choukri has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Szentlőrinc they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Szentlőrinc have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Szentlőrinc can pretend not to have heard.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Szentlőrinc can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad17 Mar 2036
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ábris Sámson 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Szentlőrinc, another week without a signature from Patrik Stifter.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Szentlőrinc can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad25 Feb 2036
Ábris Sámson 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Patrick Pejić will call it something else in private.
The dugout25 Feb 2036
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Louis Millard and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Feb 2036
The division's best last weekend was a Szentlőrinc man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Chidera Oparaocha was the best thing in any of them.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.60 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Szentlőrinc they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Puskas Akademia had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The deal with MTK Budapest 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.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Alessandro Nugnes has, at Szentlőrinc, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Szentlőrinc lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer from Puskas Akademia for Márk Gyetván 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kazeem Tesleem will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Szentlőrinc the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Everything agreed with Nyíregyháza, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Szentlőrinc can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tibor Szabó was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Szentlőrinc is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ábris Sámson 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.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tibor Szabó 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Szentlőrinc lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Szentlőrinc can tell you which week it ends in.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout17 Dec 2035
Somebody else is better right now than Attila Botka
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Szentlőrinc lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Szentlőrinc will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad19 Nov 2035
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tibor Szabó 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.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Szentlőrinc, another week without a signature from Patrik Stifter.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Pejić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Davod Arzani is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Szentlőrinc will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Daniel Cicaldau decided nobody was going anywhere. Tiszakécske had no time left to answer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Szentlőrinc can pretend not to have heard.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Cicaldau. 3‑2 against Tiszakécske, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad29 Oct 2035
Tibor Szabó 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniel Cicaldau has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Szentlőrinc can pretend not to have heard.
“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; Szentlőrinc are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad22 Oct 2035
Tibor Szabó 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.
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Szentlőrinc lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Giovanni Parafioriti will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Szentlőrinc the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Dušan Ignjatović has agreed terms with Mezőkövesd for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Szentlőrinc are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Valentyn Shakhov is 20, and Szentlőrinc have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
136 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Szentlőrinc lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
“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 Szentlőrinc, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Szentlőrinc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.05 — 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.
The dugout24 Sep 2035
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Interim Coach kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
SquadWords at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Szentlőrinc have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Szentlőrinc have done the hard part with MTK Budapest, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Szentlőrinc can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Pejić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Matteo Silvano 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.
Boardroom20 Aug 2035
139% of the income goes out in wages at Szentlőrinc
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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Szentlőrinc know it.
Áron Kopácsi 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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Patrick Pejić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Szentlőrinc will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Daniel Cicaldau has, at Szentlőrinc, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad4 Jun 2035
Words at Szentlőrinc training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dušan Ignjatović 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ZTE have kept their man, and Szentlőrinc go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.