There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. HIFK will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HIFK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Evgeny Kharin 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.
Shots: 10. 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.
Theo Sander 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at HIFK has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HIFK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 The request is on a desk at HIFK, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Johannes Viitala will call it something else in private.
“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 HIFK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brooklyn Lyons-Foster 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at HIFK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. HIFK will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Inter Turku go through and HIFK go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Till Cissokho 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Christopher Ojeda 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HIFK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Christopher Ojeda 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 8.64 — 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. HIFK know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
In brief
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Elías Ovelar
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HIFK 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 HIFK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
11 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“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 HIFK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brooklyn Lyons-Foster 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.