The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
At 34 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Nea Salamis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Florent Hanin 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Nea Salamis can tell you which week it ends in.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nea Salamis, another week without a signature from Denis Thomalla.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nea Salamis have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Sergio González and Nea Salamis agree another 2 years.
Nea Salamis offered $590.0K; Omonoia 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Florent Hanin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nea Salamis asked and Málaga said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nea Salamis have made the call to Omonoia. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nea Salamis they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Florent Hanin 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 Aloïs Confais was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Nea Salamis, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Nea Salamis has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
A 0‑3 beating by Apollon was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Nea Salamis 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nea Salamis can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Konstantinos Koubaris will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nea Salamis the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Omonoia have kept their man, and Nea Salamis go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Florent Hanin 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 deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Nea Salamis will try again when the window opens; Pafos may not be selling by then.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Sergio González is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nea Salamis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Nea Salamis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Florent Hanin 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Nea Salamis will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.