Marked for Brandon Thomas
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Dec 2026
Morgan Brown has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Apollon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Morgan Brown has agreed terms with Omonoia for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 145% of everything Apollon earn
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.
Match26 Dec 2026
A 1‑0 win over Olympiakos Nicosia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Joel Asoro
“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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.84 on the card, and the Apollon support went home talking about one name.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Ioannis Alexandrou could afford to be generous.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market16 Nov 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Pedro Marques has his answer from Apollon; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Mateo Pérez
“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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Pedro Marques knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pedro Marques trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market16 Nov 2026
The name of Emanuel Aiwu keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Apollon say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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 dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes Ali Youssef a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Apollon. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
Mateo Pérez 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Pafos left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout19 Oct 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 Ioannis Alexandrou to a room that had heard them before.
Market19 Oct 2026
Josef Kvída is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Apollon has been clear about where Josef Kvída stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Andreas Siikkis
“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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Looking ahead19 Oct 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Paralimni in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market19 Oct 2026
The name of Emanuel Aiwu keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Apollon say nothing, which says plenty.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
The one thing Pedro Marques could not do
Shots: 9, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match23 Sep 2026
Cup progress for Apollon
A 5‑0 win over Agia Napa, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Brandon Thomas takes the afternoon — 8.26
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Brandon Thomas provided it, and the 8.26 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Donaldo Açka takes the afternoon — 8.05
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Donaldo Açka provided it, and the 8.05 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Apollon can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Match26 Sep 2026
APOEL left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match23 Sep 2026
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Agia Napa tried to reorganise, Apollon did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Dani Escriche
“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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 new faces, and Apollon 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.
The dugout28 Sep 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 Ioannis Alexandrou to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Only the photograph left for Mateo Pérez
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mateo Pérez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Apollon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market10 Aug 2026
Hércules come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Apollon did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mateo Pérez has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Apollon
Willian Lira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: PAEEK have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Zacharias Adoni. The answer from Apollon has not changed — yet.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dimitris Papoulis 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A loan move for Alan Marinelli is in the works
Apollon have made the call to Slovacko. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Emanuel Aiwu knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Apollon, and both men came out saying it was fine.