Marked for Ilias Chatzitheodoridis
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” OFI may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market8 Feb 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at OFI is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Tempers go at OFI
Dimitris Nikolaou 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 targets8 Feb 2027
The window shuts on the Aliou Badji deal
OFI ran out of time with Levadiakos. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A row about effort at OFI
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thiago Nuss was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
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 dugout8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thiago Nuss, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lamine Kaba and OFI agree another 4 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
Fotios Mandalos damages knee ligaments — 18 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Fer Pina out for 107 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason OFI will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match3 Oct 2026
No mercy from OFI
Kifisia will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. OFI were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market5 Oct 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 ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Kenan Kodro, 33, rolls back the years — 8.81
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.81 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at OFI
Dimitris Nikolaou and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Manuel Kalafatis is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
At last: OFI win one
5 matches without a win, and then this, against Kifisia. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
In brief
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Player ratings
Eddie Salcedo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Jonathan Hereñú
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Volos NPS wanted more than $5.8M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Market14 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at OFI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at OFI training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aitor Cantalapiedra 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
A bad afternoon for OFI against Olympiacos
1‑2 to Olympiacos, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Kostas Stafylidis 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Andreas Galanopoulos 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
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Manos Chnaris
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. OFI lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.85 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
Giannis Apostolakis, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.96
A mark of 7.96 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Panetolikos 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
OFI had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Olimpia, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market31 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done: Lazar Kojić joins from Panetolikos in a deal worth $450.0K. Now comes the harder part.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Aitor Cantalapiedra and OFI agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at OFI
Dimitris Nikolaou and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at OFI training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aitor Cantalapiedra 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.
Transfer targets3 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The formation has left Braian Uribe behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. OFI will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.