A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
Lorenzo Scipioni 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Luka Jović has improved at 29, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 44. 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Lovro Majer 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. AEK will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
At 21 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Lorenzo Scipioni 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AEK, and 3 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
At 22 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
AEK close the window on a squad of their own making
10 in and 14 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.
AEK ran out of time with Olympiacos. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Lovro Majer 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have shaken hands with Olympiacos; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gimnasia y Esgrima wanted more than $9.4M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Lorenzo Scipioni 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 morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
AEK have gone to Gimnasia y Esgrima with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Position 3, 56 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The name of Thomas Strakosha has come up in conversations AEK were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
At 21 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.
Lorenzo Scipioni 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 63 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olympiacos keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Panagiotis Retsos wants continental football; whether AEK can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nikos Vlioras is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
Nobody at AEK 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 70 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lorenzo Scipioni is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Lorenzo Scipioni 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 have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Nobody at AEK 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and João Mário trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at AEK. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al Ahli keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charalampos Lykogiannis 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
$13.1M on the table at Al Ahli. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Lovro Majer 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. Charalampos Lykogiannis 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.
At 35 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Asteras waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Gijón for Jan Hurtado 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Lovro Majer 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and AEK are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at AEK 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Alvarado is saying, and nobody at AEK is enjoying the guessing.
AEK and Al-Shabab have settled on $1.7M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Business between these two is never simply business. AEK wanted Miloš Pantović, Panathinaikos did not want to sell to them of all clubs, and the signature at the end of it says who won that argument.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Olympiacos did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $6.5M for Lorenzo Scipioni, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
$1.6M on the table at Al-Shabab. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
AEK offered $840.0K; OFI 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Barnabás Varga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 appearances and 34 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Nobody at AEK 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AEK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luka Jović signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
34 goals in 12 games at Torpedo Kutaisi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AEK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lovro Majer 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at AEK pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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 Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mijat Gaćinović has his answer from AEK; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Nobody at AEK 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 59 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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 Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at AEK, and 5 appearances in 30 say he has earned the hearing.
The words a physio says slowly. 66 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Charalampos Lykogiannis 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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 82 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Panagiotis Retsos 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.
“I watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bunyodkor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at AEK 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.
9 goals in 24 games at Baltika — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AEK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The words a physio says slowly. 158 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.
AEK offered $6.5M; Olympiacos 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aris Thessaloniki have kept their man, and AEK go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $1.7M has been paid because Jan Hurtado is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 9 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Charalampos Lykogiannis 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: Luka Jović. 1‑0 against OFI, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Barnabás Varga 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 8.28 — 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.
Răzvan Marin 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 first defeat in 7 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Olympiacos; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
13 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Kifisia will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
AEK close the window on a squad of their own making
13 in and 5 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.
Charalampos Lykogiannis 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Zois Karargyris 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.
Add another name to the list: Dobrudzha have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Zois Karargyris. The answer from AEK has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lazaros Rota was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
6 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Volos NPS the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that AEK will enjoy reviewing.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
AEK offered $460.0K; Houston Dynamo 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.
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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Kalmar FF had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Aris Thessaloniki wanted more than $1.8M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Add another name to the list: Panetolikos have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Aboubakary Koita. The answer from AEK has not changed — yet.
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.