Marked for Marius Coman
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match28 Nov 2045
1‑2 away to the standard of KuPS. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Squad4 Dec 2045
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitatea Craiova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market4 Dec 2045
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Universitatea Craiova is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Dec 2045
A move Jack Jackson 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. Jack Jackson is living that version at Universitatea Craiova, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad4 Dec 2045
Words at Universitatea Craiova training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jakub Kratochvíl 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.
Squad4 Dec 2045
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kevin Mejia and Universitatea Craiova agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom4 Dec 2045
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Boardroom4 Dec 2045
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Player ratings4 Dec 2045
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match4 Nov 2045
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 19 matches without defeat is a foundation Universitatea Craiova did not have in the autumn.
Match4 Nov 2045
6‑2, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad6 Nov 2045
Defences have started doubling up on John Lawrence
23 goals and a season average of 7.59 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings6 Nov 2045
Two goals and a mark of 9.22 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings6 Nov 2045
Age has not caught Javier Ruiz yet — 8.25
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.25 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad6 Nov 2045
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitatea Craiova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market6 Nov 2045
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Universitatea Craiova is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match4 Nov 2045
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jun 2045
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alexandru Hagi
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Universitatea Craiova lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 Jun 2045
Position 1 and 48 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market5 Jun 2045
Botosani come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Universitatea Craiova did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad5 Jun 2045
103 appearances across 14 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Universitatea Craiova know what they have.
Squad5 Jun 2045
A move Javier Ruiz 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. Javier Ruiz is living that version at Universitatea Craiova, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad5 Jun 2045
Razvan Dragusin: 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.” Universitatea Craiova have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market18 Jul 2044
The offer from Astra for Georg Krause 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.
Market18 Jul 2044
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Apostolos Siovas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Universitatea Craiova the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Jul 2044
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Universitatea Craiova this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jul 2044
David Matei 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.
Market18 Jul 2044
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Universitatea Craiova will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad18 Jul 2044
Marius Coman is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.