It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corey Hollman 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.
Willem Ebbinge 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Greg Sandiford commits to Team Wellington for another 3 years.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Victor Ntokon 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues signs something — a contract at Team Wellington or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Team Wellington have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
That is the business done at Team Wellington until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Stefan Đorđević and Team Wellington agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
$100.0K on the table at Hawke's Bay United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Willem Ebbinge 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 chase for Alex Van Hattum ended with $39.0K changing hands and Southern United out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Team Wellington were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Team Wellington know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
A mark of 8.33 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Auckland City is saying, and nobody at Team Wellington is enjoying the guessing.
Stefan Đorđević 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Canterbury United have kept their man, and Team Wellington go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corey Hollman 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 is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues 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.
0‑3 against Southern United, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“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 Team Wellington 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 Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Dan Edwards had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and WaiBOP United were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
7.92, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 had been thinking. Corey Hollman 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Team Wellington have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Stefan Đorđević 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
“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 Team Wellington will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Ruon Tongyik 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 had been thinking. Corey Hollman 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 used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Canterbury United in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joe Fenton trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Team Wellington 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 Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Team Wellington know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Waitakere United 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 Dan Edwards signs something — a contract at Team Wellington or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Team Wellington lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Corey Hollman 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 keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Team Wellington, another week without a signature from Ilisoni Lolaivalu.
Carlos Carmona arrives at 39 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.