Marked for Anastasios Siovas
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Mar 2043
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alessandro Vogt and Levski agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market9 Mar 2043
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Albian Rodriguez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Levski the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Mar 2043
Harald Woxen 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.
Squad9 Mar 2043
A move Anastasios Siovas would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Anastasios Siovas is living that version at Levski, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad9 Mar 2043
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levski this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market9 Mar 2043
Levski shop where it costs nothing
Anastasios Siovas signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 May 2042
The words a physio says slowly. 121 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.
Squad5 May 2042
A fracture rules Erick Marquez out for 94 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monterrey will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 May 2042
“The easiest signature of my career.” Zois Karargyris and Monterrey agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Apr 2042
526 appearances across 21 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Monterrey know what they have.
Squad7 Apr 2042
Víctor Guzmán pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Market7 Apr 2042
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match8 Mar 2042
Whatever happens, Monterrey do not lose
21 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad10 Mar 2042
There were 8 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.
Player ratings10 Mar 2042
Ramiro Tulián, 34, rolls back the years — 8.00
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.00 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings10 Mar 2042
Boaz Plantinga pops up at the right end — 7.74
7.74, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad10 Mar 2042
Zois Karargyris 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.
Market10 Mar 2042
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Anastasios Siovas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Monterrey the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match8 Mar 2042
Monterrey keep winning on the road
5 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings10 Mar 2042
Marked 7.74. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad10 Mar 2042
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lukas Kelly-Heald has just signed for Monterrey, and for once the answer mattered.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Feb 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zois Karargyris
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monterrey lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 Feb 2042
Whatever happens, Monterrey do not lose
19 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match22 Feb 2042
The run at home goes on for Monterrey
20 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad24 Feb 2042
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monterrey will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad24 Feb 2042
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.
Squad24 Feb 2042
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Monterrey have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings24 Feb 2042
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings24 Feb 2042
Defensive actions: 15, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings24 Feb 2042
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Feb 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zois Karargyris
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monterrey lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match8 Feb 2042
Whatever happens, Monterrey do not lose
17 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match8 Feb 2042
The run at home goes on for Monterrey
19 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad10 Feb 2042
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monterrey will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad10 Feb 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings10 Feb 2042
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market10 Feb 2042
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Feb 2042
Zois Karargyris 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.
Market10 Feb 2042
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Monterrey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad20 Jan 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zois Karargyris
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Monterrey lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match20 Jan 2042
Monterrey are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 62 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad20 Jan 2042
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Monterrey will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad20 Jan 2042
“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.
Match18 Jan 2042
Monterrey make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Monterrey have 5 straight wins of it.
Market20 Jan 2042
Monterrey say no — this time
The offer from Morelia for Edward Cedeño 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.
Player ratings20 Jan 2042
Ángel Rico, 37, rolls back the years — 7.93
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad20 Jan 2042
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Monterrey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market20 Jan 2042
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Tigres moved on, Anastasios Siovas reports back to Monterrey, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Jan 2042
Zois Karargyris damages knee ligaments — 73 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
Squad6 Jan 2042
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.
Match4 Jan 2042
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Monterrey did not have in the autumn.
Market6 Jan 2042
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Monterrey have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings6 Jan 2042
Age has not caught Ángel Rico yet — 7.93
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market6 Jan 2042
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market6 Jan 2042
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Monterrey heard it as anything else.
Squad6 Jan 2042
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Iker Fimbres commits to Monterrey for another 2 years.
Squad6 Jan 2042
Zois Karargyris 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.