Marked for Denis Yanakov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Unirea Slobozia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Esteban signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Esteban commits to Unirea Slobozia for another 3 years.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Unirea Slobozia can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Ionuţ Rădescu 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Denis Rusu
“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.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against FCSB.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Laurenţiu Vlăsceanu’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Unirea Slobozia needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market12 Oct 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Renato Espinosa signs something — a contract at Unirea Slobozia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andrei Dorobanţu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Oct 2026
6 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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; Unirea Slobozia are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Alexandru Albu and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Unirea Slobozia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teodor Lungu 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Unirea Slobozia are still strangers to each other
8 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Ştefan Ciupercă
“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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. CFR Cluj will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
Alexandru Albu 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teodor Lungu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 39, 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.
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Bogdan Iancu to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Rafael Garutti is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
6 saves: Denis Rusu was the team
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.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Ludogorets keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Unirea Slobozia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ionuţ Rădescu 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Sep 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Andrei Dorobanţu and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Teodor Lungu
“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 dugout21 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bogdan Iancu after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Renato Espinosa takes the afternoon — 8.43
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Renato Espinosa provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Unirea Slobozia did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $20.0K — a club that wants Gabriel Gheorghe enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ionuţ Rădescu 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$19.0K was the most the club would pay and Rapid Bucharest were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Teodor Lungu 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
A 2‑2 draw with FC Argeș leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.