Marked for Kostas Triantafyllopoulos
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Jan 2027
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Asteras scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Market25 Jan 2027
Kalvin Ketu hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets25 Jan 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.
Match23 Jan 2027
A 2‑1 win over Kifisia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Marked 8.21 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad25 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Asteras
Martin Georgiev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
A loan move for Gelson Martins is in the works
Asteras have made the call to Olympiacos. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Asteras know it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Asteras may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 targets4 Jan 2027
The deal with Olympiacos 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Asteras
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Asteras
Franco Orozco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market4 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Asteras have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Asteras can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Nov 2026
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Asteras
Franco Orozco 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.
Match14 Nov 2026
Asteras come up short against PAOK
PAOK left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Julián Bartolo, and the manager let it.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Giannis Kotsiras did the work nobody counts — 6.95
9 combined actions and 6.95. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Asteras
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucas Chacana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Iván More and Asteras agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market16 Nov 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Kostas Triantafyllopoulos has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Asteras.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Julián Bartolo 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nikola Šipčić pulls a muscle — 16 days out
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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.50. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Asteras.
Squad21 Sep 2026
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Franco Orozco at his very best
Marked 8.02. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Asteras.
Match19 Sep 2026
Late, late show earns Asteras a point
Minute 92, against Panserraikos, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Match19 Sep 2026
A 2‑2 draw with Panserraikos leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at Asteras, and it is a cruel one.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 18, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Chacana 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nobody on the pitch touched Nikola Šipčić
7.61, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Asteras had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Nikos Papadopoulos
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Market14 Sep 2026
At 33, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Match12 Sep 2026
No goals between Asteras and AEK
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. AEK will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
Kalvin Ketu hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Asteras close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Market7 Sep 2026
APOEL come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Asteras did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets7 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Volos NPS, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Franco Orozco at his very best
Marked 8.21. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Asteras.
Squad7 Sep 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Kostas Triantafyllopoulos 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.