34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akritas Chlorakas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑4 to APOEL, 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Akritas Chlorakas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Anthony Limbombe 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.
“I did not go to ASIL Lysi to sit and watch. I want to come back to Akritas Chlorakas and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
50 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akritas Chlorakas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akritas Chlorakas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christos Papadimitriou 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Thomas Ioannou has his answer from Akritas Chlorakas; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Aris next, and one man in the Akritas Chlorakas dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Akritas Chlorakas 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. 14 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.
Anthony Limbombe 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.
7 goals in one match, Alberto on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Akritas Chlorakas and Paralimni.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Labros Genethliou had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Add another name to the list: Anorthosis have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alberto. The answer from Akritas Chlorakas has not changed — yet.
Anthony Limbombe 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.
Akritas Chlorakas asked and Spezia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Akritas Chlorakas will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Anorthosis in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.