The mood at Naxxar Lions has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Naxxar Lions can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Naxxar Lions know it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Vincenzo Cantisani is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Position 12, 16 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
The terraces31 Jan 2028
The mood at Naxxar Lions has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
Yeangel Montero 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Aleksandrs Tarasovs has just signed for Naxxar Lions, and for once the answer mattered.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑3 to Hamrun Spartans, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Naxxar Lions can tell you which week it ends in.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Naxxar Lions can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Naxxar Lions now know that too.
Nobody at Naxxar Lions 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Naxxar Lions will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Two goals and a mark of 9.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Naxxar Lions, and it is not being withdrawn.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Gustavo Campos scored, was marked 7.50, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Naxxar Lions 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 Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Naxxar Lions will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Jamie Azzopardi: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Tarxien Rainbows for Vinicius Baiano 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.
28 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Naxxar Lions may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Naxxar Lions training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. JP Iseppe 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Naxxar Lions have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
JP Iseppe 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.
In brief
SquadSekala Guehi falls out with a teammate over standards
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Naxxar Lions this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Naxxar Lions training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sekala Guehi 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.