The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Clifford Aboagye 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.
A 2‑1 win over Ethnikos Achnas, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Marked 8.17. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Anorthosis.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Kostakis Kolias kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Nemanja Tošić
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Anorthosis lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Anorthosis they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Clifford Aboagye 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Babacar Dione 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 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.
Ethnikos Achnas next, and one man in the Anorthosis 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 Alessio da Cruz signs something — a contract at Anorthosis or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Anorthosis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anorthosis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
With 7 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Babacar Dione was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Nahuel da Silva and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
Successful dribbles: 42. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Anorthosis who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
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.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Anorthosis lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Anorthosis have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Nahuel da Silva, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.99
A mark of 7.99 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anorthosis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Nahuel da Silva’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Anorthosis.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Alessio da Cruz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Babacar Dione 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.
Nahuel da Silva, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nahuel da Silva. 1‑0 against APOEL, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Babacar Dione was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.47 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Anorthosis they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Clifford Aboagye 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.
Anorthosis asked and Olympiacos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rafael Lopes. 2‑0 against Nea Salamis, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Kostakis Kolias on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Tamás Kiss
“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 Anorthosis, 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 Anorthosis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Babacar Dione was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christos Kosidis and Anorthosis agree another 4 years.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Kostakis Kolias chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Anorthosis can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Add another name to the list: Doxa have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Fanos Katelaris. The answer from Anorthosis has not changed — yet.
Still no offer on the table, and Jacob Karlstrøm’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Babacar Dione was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.