Marked for Baboye Traoré
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Dec 2026
The knee: Alin Roman out for 90 days
90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. UTA Arad lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market28 Dec 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at UTA Arad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Omar El-Sawy ran the middle of the pitch — 6.97
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 6.97, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A falling-out at UTA Arad
Hakim Abdallah and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match26 Dec 2026
0‑2 to Dinamo Bucharest, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Florent Poulolo 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 dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Cosmin Maxim to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Looking ahead28 Dec 2026
FK Csíkszereda next, and one man in the UTA Arad dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Dec 2026
The knee: Alin Roman out for 98 days
98 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. UTA Arad lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad21 Dec 2026
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.
Market21 Dec 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 ratings21 Dec 2026
A goal and an assist for Marinos Tzionis — 7.97
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.97 beside his name.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at UTA Arad
Alexandru Roşca 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.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
The crowd has taken to Mario Salka
At 19 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A row about effort at UTA Arad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Baboye Traoré was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dmytro Pospielov, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Nov 2026
A falling-out at UTA Arad
Dmytro Pospielov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A row about effort at UTA Arad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marinos Tzionis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Florent Poulolo, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Denis Hrezdac has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at UTA Arad 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.
Market16 Nov 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Valentin Robu signs something — a contract at UTA Arad or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Feliz Vaz remains an outsider
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at UTA Arad would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Denis Ţăroi knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at UTA Arad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
9 starts now, an average of 6.20, and the team sheet at FC Bacău has stopped being a question. Exactly what everybody signed up for.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Home comforts ahead for UTA Arad
Botosani, position 9, come to town on Saturday. Nobody will call it a big game and nobody at the club will be treating it as anything else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at UTA Arad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marinos Tzionis commits to UTA Arad for another 3 years.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A row about effort at UTA Arad
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Răzvan Ristin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marko Stolnik, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The formation has left Baboye Traoré behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. UTA Arad will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at UTA Arad, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at UTA Arad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Fabiano Cibi is a better footballer than he was
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.
Match3 Oct 2026
At last: UTA Arad win one
6 matches without a win, and then this, against Farul Constanța. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad5 Oct 2026
17 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Dmytro Pospielov 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A mark of 7.76, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
Market5 Oct 2026
UTA Arad bring in an old head
Baboye Traoré is 36 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.