It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MSK Zilina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Spartak Trnava have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Xavier Adang. The answer from MSK Zilina has not changed — yet.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. MSK Zilina know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Kostas Triantafyllopoulos has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” MSK Zilina have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MSK Zilina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MSK Zilina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MSK Zilina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.46 — 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.
Miroslav Káčer 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.
Miroslav Káčer 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at MSK Zilina this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Spartak Trnava? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Ramón Ortigoza 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.
Marked 8.45 — 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.
Marked 8.43 — 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. MSK Zilina have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Miroslav Káčer 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. MSK Zilina will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Kostas Triantafyllopoulos arrives at 33 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Ramón Ortigoza is 39 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Slovan Bratislava? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.