Guilherme Santos 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 João Silva was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Makedonikos are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Makedonikos know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Tristan Marshall is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kostas Galanopoulos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Makedonikos will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Makedonikos, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ruly 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.
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.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
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 Stavros Kourbelis to a room that had heard them before.
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 Ruly is on it.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Makedonikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Adeleke 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.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Makedonikos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Makedonikos had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Panserraikos, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Makedonikos have done the hard part with PAOK, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Makedonikos offered $600.0K; Panserraikos 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 Aarón Rey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Ruly 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Johnson Eboh 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Makedonikos would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Thomas Karaberis has written the date down.
Aarón Rey 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Makedonikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kostas Goumas 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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
156% of the income goes out in wages at Makedonikos
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
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.” Stavros Kourbelis chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Stavros Kourbelis could afford to be generous.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Makedonikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikos Karastergios 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.
8 appearances at Chalkanoras Idaliou and the goals have stopped going in. Makedonikos lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Played out of position, hooked on the hour, asked to be somebody he is not — the details vary and the mood does not. Makedonikos have a player doing his work under protest.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Makedonikos 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 Kostas Goumas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Kostas Goumas and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Makedonikos. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
0‑5 to Niki Volos, 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.
Aarón Rey 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Makedonikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kostas Goumas 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 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Half the programme played, position 3, 13 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Makedonikos dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
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.
Aarón Rey 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
140% of the income goes out in wages at Makedonikos
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Niki Volos next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Makedonikos, another week without a signature from Ruly.
12 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Stavros Kourbelis after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kostas Goumas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A Makedonikos teenager takes the young player award
Nime Sacko is 19, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Asteras Tripolis B? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdullah Al-Dossari trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kostas Goumas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
16 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
“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.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Shots: 5. 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Kavala spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Makedonikos can pretend not to have heard.
Aarón Rey 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 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.