11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț has to find a result from somewhere.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
19 in and 24 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț have done the hard part with Legia, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Amar Pekarić 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.
10 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.
0‑3 against Dinamo Bucharest, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț 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 Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Igdir FK for Tai Žnuderl was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Angelo Cocian 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.85, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Angelo Cocian 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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Amar Pekarić 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.
Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț asked and Farul Constanța said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț has to find a result from somewhere.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Amar Pekarić 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.
Emmanuel Asibey 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” George Stanciu after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Gloria Bistrița waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț 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 Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zaglebie keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Angelo Cocian 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.
FC Bacău will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The offer from Dinamo Bucharest for Ionuţ Coadă was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Sepsi OSK for Andrei Gheorghiţă was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț can pretend not to have heard.
Angelo Cocian 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Adam Sosna has, at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yassine Zakir was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț can tell you which week it ends in.
Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț asked and Puskas Akademia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Amar Pekarić has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Angelo Cocian 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Amar Pekarić 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Sepsi OSK; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Half the programme played, position 1, 44 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Ionuţ Coadă's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
23 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Zakir 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 8.13. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” George Stanciu, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț 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 Amar Pekarić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.20, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” George Stanciu, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
20 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Ionuţ Coadă 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Yassine Zakir 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Eduard Pap is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” George Stanciu was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț dressing room was either.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Ionuţ Coadă 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yassine Zakir 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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.
26 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Amar Pekarić 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.
Marked 8.16 — 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.
Maxime Debove 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.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Angelo Cocian and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Yassine Zakir 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Răzvan Matiş. 1‑0 against CSC Dumbrăvița, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yassine Zakir was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Altamura have kept their man, and Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
14 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Yassine Zakir 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.
Mavis Tchibota 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.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Răzvan Matiş was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Metalul Buzău scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amar Pekarić 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Debrecen have kept their man, and Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 7.07 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Everything agreed with Steaua Bucharest, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Yassine Zakir 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Voluntari have kept their man, and Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amar Pekarić 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 89. Olimpia Satu Mare had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț has been clear about where Mihai Şandru stands, which is more than many ever get.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Ceahlăul Piatra Neamț, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Manuel Pisano did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Răzvan Matiş. 2‑1 against Metalul Buzău, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Mavis Tchibota 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Manuel Pisano has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Caiser Gomes 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.
In brief
Player ratingsRăzvan Matiş was on a different afternoon to everybody else