Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 59 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑3 to Olympiacos, 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christos Albanis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEL Larisa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Benjamin Markuš 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 Luca Andrada was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The dugout27 Sep 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 0‑3 Pavlos Siovas left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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 The request is on a desk at AEL Larisa, and it is not being withdrawn.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 AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Adrien Thibaut is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AEL Larisa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The language is coming and there is somebody to talk to in the dressing room. A footballer who feels at home plays like one, and it never shows up in a scouting report.
The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEL Larisa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Apostolis Christopoulos 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. AEL Larisa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vasilis Sourlis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
The agreement at Kavala has 8 days left in it, with 0 appearances to weigh. Three doors: keep him, sell him, lend him again — and none of them stays open long.
James Maxwell 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at AEL Larisa, another week without a signature from Benjamin Markuš.
“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 AEL Larisa know it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Savvas Mourgos is on it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEL Larisa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 AEL Larisa know it.
Apostolis Christopoulos 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at AEL Larisa pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEL Larisa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 12 and 17 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEL Larisa 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 AEL Larisa can pretend not to have heard.
AEL Larisa had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Krasnodar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kalamata have kept their man, and AEL Larisa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEL Larisa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Nestos Chrysoupoli waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEL Larisa is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Spartak Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Yvann Maçon 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marc Nierga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Something was said to Zisis Chatzistravos and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Panathinaikos in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEL Larisa 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 AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” David Rodríguez and AEL Larisa agree another 1 years.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Pavlos Siovas on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nasos Dabizas is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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. 9 actions, 6.73, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout30 Nov 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Pavlos Siovas to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutNikos Melissas is still being punished for one mistake
Yvann Maçon 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 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 AEL Larisa know it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Pavlos Siovas after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
5 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one AEL Larisa will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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 7.89 for the rest of it.
At 23 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.
James Maxwell 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.
Everybody at AEL Larisa saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
It needed Benjamin Markuš to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Aris Thessaloniki, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“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 AEL Larisa know 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 AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for AEL Larisa is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
18 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.
Sergio López is 37 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Pione Sisto’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and AEL Larisa needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Savvas Mourgos is on it.
0‑3 against Panathinaikos, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
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 AEL Larisa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the AEL Larisa dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout21 Sep 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 0‑3 Pavlos Siovas left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and AEL Larisa will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Olympiacos next, and one man in the AEL Larisa dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The phone has started ringing about Nasos Dabizas again, and this time the name on the line is Ypsonas. AEL Larisa are listening politely and promising nothing.
James Maxwell 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Nikos Tzavellas 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.
Minute 90, against Asteras, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Adrien Thibaut had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
AEL Larisa asked and Zamora said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
James Maxwell 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 AEL Larisa, another week without a signature from James Maxwell.
Asteras next, and one man in the AEL Larisa dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at AEL Larisa has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AEL Larisa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“He needs to be playing at a level that matches him, and we are open to conversations.” Nobody says that by accident, and nobody at AEL Larisa misheard it.
$5.8M on the table at DAC Dunajska Streda. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. James Maxwell is living that version at AEL Larisa, and it tends to show in the first month.
Spyros Risvanis 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at AEL Larisa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andreas Makris 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.
15 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hakeeb Adelakun and Doncaster Rovers agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Luke Molyneux 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.
A loan enquiry to Northampton Town: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jay McGrath 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Hakeeb Adelakun’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
A decision that decides nothing on the pitch and everything in the room. The manager has said, without saying it, whose voice he wants heard when his own is not there.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sam Straughan-Brown trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.