60 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marko lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edvin Bećirović 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 74 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 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Charalabos Kyriakidis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Marko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Giorgos Pavlidis 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 had been thinking. Edvin Bećirović 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.
“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; Marko are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Bruno Xavier is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Marko, another week without a signature from Edu Gallardo.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Marko lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Marko is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Alexander Johansson 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.
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.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Kostas Kotsaris is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
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 Richard Olise has written the date down.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Marko lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Marko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Marko know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Marko, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Jhon Montoya a promise
The words a physio says slowly. 123 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 Marko is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Vangelis Gravvanis reports back to Marko with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Giorgos Pavlidis 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 had been thinking. Edvin Bećirović 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 Marko, another week without a signature from Edu Gallardo.
Marko spent the window trying to move Marios Tsaousis on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
69 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marko lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
James Maxwell 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 had been thinking. Edvin Bećirović 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.
“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; Marko are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Marko will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
76 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marko lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Marko they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
James Maxwell 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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 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.
In brief
The dugoutJorge Rans asks for a word with the manager
113 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marko lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Marko can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Alexander Johansson 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 had been thinking. James Maxwell 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.
120 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marko lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Panagiotis Avgerinos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Marko the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Panagiotis Avgerinos 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Maxwell 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.
Everybody at Marko saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 33 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Marko lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
James Maxwell 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 Ramiro Alderete was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
David Jablonský arrives at 37 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Nobody at Marko will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Position 5 on 25 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samir Haribou is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The offer went to Araz-Nakhchivan this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rəhman Daşdəmirov is on it.