“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zabbar St. Patrick can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nobody at Zabbar St. Patrick 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zabbar St. Patrick, and it is not being withdrawn.
Mayron 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.
Squad15 May 2028
Ryan Scicluna 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zabbar St. Patrick 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 Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadZean Leonardi falls out with a teammate over standards
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ariol Kaloshi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Zabbar St. Patrick the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Zabbar St. Patrick will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zabbar St. Patrick is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zabbar St. Patrick 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 Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadZean Leonardi falls out with a teammate over standards
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zabbar St. Patrick is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
“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 Zabbar St. Patrick, 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 Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Brian Gambarte was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. 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.
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 Zabbar St. Patrick now know that too.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Gzira United tried to reorganise, Zabbar St. Patrick did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
In brief
SquadThe team sheet said everything about Luís Mota
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Zabbar St. Patrick has to find a result from somewhere.
“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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Sa'ad Tijjani 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick 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 Zabbar St. Patrick know it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pedro Cejas signs something — a contract at Zabbar St. Patrick or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 ratings29 Nov 2027
A brace, and Pedro Cejas takes the afternoon — 7.97
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pedro Cejas provided it, and the 7.97 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Brian Gambarte has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brynjar Hlöðvers 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 words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
The terraces30 Aug 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 10 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
The shirt still fits. Brynjar Hlöðvers is back at Zabbar St. Patrick, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lawrence Cassar 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.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zabbar St. Patrick lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Wycliffe Nthata has just signed for Zabbar St. Patrick, and for once the answer mattered.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Sa'ad Tijjani 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.
Yuri Yablonski is 33 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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zabbar St. Patrick lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zabbar St. Patrick can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Zabbar St. Patrick, 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 Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zabbar St. Patrick 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 Zabbar St. Patrick this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vinicius 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zabbar St. Patrick can pretend not to have heard.
Bruno Figueiredo 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mxolisi Bhengu is living that version at Mosta, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Awad 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.
Marked 5.47. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Marked 5.68. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kean Scicluna is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Fontanella 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 words a physio says slowly. 47 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.
Francisco Vera 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Mosta, another week without a signature from Nathan Agius.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 10 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mosta lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Mosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Chukwuemeka Junior Eke is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Awad 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.
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.