Marked for Robert Murić
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Sep 2026
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Paul Mbong, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match19 Sep 2026
Floriana make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Floriana have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Robert Murić beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Floriana
Kenan Dervišagić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.79 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
One of those days for Paul Mbong
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.39, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Floriana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yankho Singo 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gilbert Borg commits to Floriana for another 3 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Floriana cannot stop winning
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Floriana
Kenan Dervišagić 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jake Formosa is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Valletta, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Yankho Singo 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Floriana are still strangers to each other
7 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every Floriana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Hamrun Spartans runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match29 Aug 2026
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Gonzalo Gamarra 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ryan Andrews arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ryan Andrews has, at Floriana, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Kauan 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
Floriana say no — this time
The offer from Western Sydney Wanderers for Kenan Dervišagić 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Robert Murić 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $17.0K — a club that wants Julani Archibald enough to be asked twice.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Floriana
Robert Murić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Paul Pisani has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Steve Debattista has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Tristan Agius has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gabriel Debattista has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Robert Murić and Floriana agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Floriana
Robert Murić 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Floriana have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Floriana would admit. It shows on Saturdays.