Tasos Avlonitis 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 Dec 2026
Words at Panionios training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Díaz 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.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Grigorios Nikolaou was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Panionios dressing room was either.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Hellas Syros defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Spyros Venardos’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Panionios needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marius Adamonis signs something — a contract at Panionios or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 easiest signature of my career.” Ulrich Fokam and Panionios agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Yannick Semedo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Grigorios Nikolaou kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
In brief
The dugoutJonathan Morsay has become a man the manager trusts
1 for Yannick Semedo, marked 7.93, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
Raúl Navarro 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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Kalamata next, and one man in the Panionios dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Jorge Díaz falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Panionios man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Panagiotis Moraitis was the best thing in any of them.
Athens Kallithea next, and one man in the Panionios dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Marius Adamonis signs something — a contract at Panionios or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Giorgos Saramantas is on it.
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.
5 goals in 7 games at MEAP Nisou — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Panionios updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Jonathan Morsay obliged against Panargiakos. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Panionios.
112 minutes played. Jonathan Morsay found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Panargiakos went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jorge Díaz scored, was marked 7.40, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Raúl Navarro 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.
At 20 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Panionios can pretend not to have heard.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Rapid Bucharest is saying, and nobody at Panionios is enjoying the guessing.
Tasos Donis scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Kalamata, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Panionios training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorge Díaz 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yannick Semedo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Panionios can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $68.2K — a club that wants Ilias Tselios enough to be asked twice.
Raúl Navarro 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 finished 1‑0, and it was Dimitris Kolovos’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Panionios.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nikola Dišić falls out with a teammate over standards
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 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Aris Thessaloniki; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Panionios have done the hard part with AEK, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olympiacos keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Raúl Navarro 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.
Add another name to the list: Trnje have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Felipe Felício. The answer from Panionios has not changed — yet.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Stavros Mitroglou 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Emmanouil Androutsos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Efthymios Giakoumakis 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.
Yuriy Kendysh 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.
“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 Zalgiris know it.
Still no offer on the table, and Ivan Lytvynenko’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.