1 for Mihai Bordeianu, marked 7.58, 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.
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.
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.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Sergiu Balasa left the room before anybody could ask which.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botosani can pretend not to have heard.
Stelios Andreou 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 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sergiu Balasa was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Botosani dressing room was either.
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.
Botosani asked and Metalul Buzău said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Jakub Hromada 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.
6 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mihai Bordeianu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Botosani, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Botosani have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Botosani have done the hard part with Olympiacos, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Ludogorets is saying, and nobody at Botosani is enjoying the guessing.
Stelios Andreou 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hervin Ongenda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Botosani asked and Akhmat Grozny said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Botosani will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrei Dumiter provided it, and the 8.78 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Botosani have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sparta Prague keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Unirea Slobozia were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Juljan Shehu 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervin Ongenda 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.
Botosani 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.
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.
1‑4 to Universitatea Craiova, 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Ludogorets keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Alexandru Ţigănaşu 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Botosani know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Botosani. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Andrei Dumiter plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giannis Anestis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Botosani are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Botosani, another week without a signature from Zoran Mitrov.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botosani 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.
The table is being checked before the results are in, which is always the tell. Nobody at Botosani says the word and every senior player in the building is thinking it.
Hervin Ongenda 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Botosani know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giannis Anestis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexandru Tabuncic 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 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 Botosani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Botosani will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Botosani can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Sebastian Mailat has gone, the accounts have $1.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Ekenäs IF paid $1.5M and Botosani took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
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 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 Botosani know it.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.68 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Botosani can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mihai Bordeianu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexandru Tabuncic 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“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 Botosani, and it is not being withdrawn.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Botosani have done the hard part with Concordia Chiajna, 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: Levski keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hervin Ongenda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botosani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The deal with Levski is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervin Ongenda 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 happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Narcis Ilaş
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervin Ongenda 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 8.09 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sebastian Mailat’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Botosani needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Botosani is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
1 for Mihai Bordeianu, marked 7.63, 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
A 2‑1 win over Unirea Slobozia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
11 combined actions and 7.47. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 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 Botosani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrei Dumiter. 2‑0 against UTA Arad, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Botosani are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against UTA Arad in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hervin Ongenda signs something — a contract at Botosani or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Botosani have no good answer.
Hervin Ongenda 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandru Ţigănaşu and Botosani agree another 2 years.
0‑1 to Petrolul Ploiești, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Sergiu Balasa left the room before anybody could ask which.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Botosani, another week without a signature from Zoran Mitrov.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bryan Meyo 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sergiu Balasa after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Narcis Ilaş is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Botosani 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.
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervin Ongenda 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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Rapid Bucharest in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Alexandru Bota is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hervin Ongenda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Botosani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hervin Ongenda. 2‑0 against Metaloglobus Bucharest, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Sergiu Balasa kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Narcis Ilaş, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Modou Jarju has just signed for Botosani, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Botosani training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hervin Ongenda 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sergiu Balasa on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Botosani people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deal that would have taken Zoran Mitrov to Rapid Bucharest has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Botosani with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lokomotiv Plovdiv keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
$35.0K was the most the club would pay and Farul Constanța were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Narcis Ilaş is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 6.14 for the rest of it.
FCSB offered $470.0K; Botosani said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The name of Răzvan Oaidă has come up in conversations Botosani were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hervin Ongenda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Răzvan Oaidă 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sebastian Mailat. 2‑0 against FCSB, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Botosani are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Bodo/Glimt have accepted the money. What FCSB do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Mamadou Thiam was one of the reasons people came, and $1.9M does not replace that by itself.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CFR Cluj have kept their man, and FCSB go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $500.6K — a club that wants Andrei Dumiter enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Botosani this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Răzvan Oaidă is living that version at Botosani, and it tends to show in the first month.
The phone has started ringing about Andrei Dumiter again, and this time the name on the line is Gloria Bistrița. Botosani are listening politely and promising nothing.
Universitatea Craiova paid $820.0K and Botosani took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The shirt still fits. Răzvan Oaidă is back at Botosani, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 6.59, and not one of them will make a highlights package.