“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 The request is on a desk at Aris Thessaloniki, and it is not being withdrawn.
Rafa Mir 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fredrik Jensen signs something — a contract at Aris Thessaloniki or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Uroš Račić has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aris Thessaloniki they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Rafa Mir 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.
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 Martin Frýdek is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Uroš Račić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 5 on 44 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Aris Thessaloniki. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Somebody to talk to at the next peg, a few words of the language, and a training ground that has stopped being a foreign country. It never appears in a scouting report and it decides most signings.
Stole Dimitrievski 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.
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 Youssouf Fofana is on it.
“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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Aris Thessaloniki will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marko Kerkez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aris Thessaloniki the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Rafa Mir 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Aris Thessaloniki told Omar Richards something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aris Thessaloniki know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 5 on 44 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
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.
Out, 0‑0 to Atlético Madrid, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Stole Dimitrievski 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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. Aris Thessaloniki will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Aris Thessaloniki will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Gabriël Misehouy is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Rafa Mir 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.
Nobody at Aris Thessaloniki 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.
17 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Sevilla hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Sevilla are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
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.
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.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Rafa Mir 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.
Marked 6.87 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Aris Thessaloniki are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Aris Thessaloniki now know that too.
“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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Aris Thessaloniki will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Nobody at Aris Thessaloniki 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.
In brief
The dugoutLoren Morón asks for a word with the manager
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“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 Sevilla hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Stole Dimitrievski 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Aris Thessaloniki will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aris Thessaloniki 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 Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Efthymios Georgiadis has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Aris Thessaloniki will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Manolis Tzavellas chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
16 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Sevilla offered $24.4M; Getafe 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.
$9.7M on the table at Valencia. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Sevilla have gone to Real Sociedad 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.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $10.4M — a club that wants Mouctar Diakhaby enough to be asked twice.
Two goals and a mark of 8.86 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Aris Thessaloniki have lost him in all but the paperwork.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Aris Thessaloniki asked and Olympiacos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Panetolikos will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Aris Thessaloniki were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rafa Mir provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Aris Thessaloniki have had the benefit of it.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The name of Othmane Boussaid has come up in conversations Aris Thessaloniki were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aris Thessaloniki can pretend not to have heard.
Rafa Mir 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gabriël Misehouy is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Marked 8.42 — 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Aris Thessaloniki told Martin Frýdek something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Fábio Cardoso and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Sevilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Lima 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.
“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 Sevilla, and 4 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Luken Moya could afford to be generous.
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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Luken Moya on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fredrik Jensen and Aris Thessaloniki agree another 5 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Pavlos Tsimikas has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Position 5, 24 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Uroš Račić was the best thing in any of them.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Rafa Mir will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Aris Thessaloniki escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aris Thessaloniki have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Panathinaikos; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sevilla this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Sevilla training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Lima 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Luken Moya could afford to be generous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucas Lima was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Sevilla 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until José Ángel Carmona signs something — a contract at Sevilla or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Unai Marrero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Atlético Madrid in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Rafa Mir 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.
3 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexandros Georgiadis 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Christian Kouamé. 1‑0 against Panserraikos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Aris Thessaloniki have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Nobody at Aris Thessaloniki 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Manolis Tzavellas kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Sebastián Palacios is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Aris Thessaloniki than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Loren Morón decided nobody was going anywhere. Volos NPS had no time left to answer.
14 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Manolis Tzavellas could afford to be generous.
Asteras next, and one man in the Aris Thessaloniki dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Aris Thessaloniki will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marko Kerkez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aris Thessaloniki the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Manolis Tzavellas on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Rafa Mir has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aris Thessaloniki lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Aris Thessaloniki will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Rafa Mir 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.
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 Braian Uribe is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Aris Thessaloniki, another week without a signature from Migouel Alfarela.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Rafa Mir 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gabriël Misehouy is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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.
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.
0‑3 to PAOK, 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rafa Mir provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aris Thessaloniki they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.10, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Loren Morón, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Manolis Tzavellas, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Rafa Mir 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.
AEK paid $770.0K and Aris Thessaloniki took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Aris Thessaloniki asked and AEK said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: AEL have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Michalis Voriazidis. The answer from Aris Thessaloniki has not changed — yet.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Manu García and Aris Thessaloniki agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Rafa Mir 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.
11 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Aris Thessaloniki will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ricardo Velho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.