“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 The request is on a desk at Gzira United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Brooklyn Borg is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Gzira United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Robert Bencun 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.
Deacon Abela 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 Gzira United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 1‑0 win over Zabbar St. Patrick, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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 ratings12 Oct 2026
Fabrício Kanté was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Adame Laidouni is 18, and Gzira United have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and Gzira United are still learning each other
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gzira United, another week without a signature from Ilya Kalita.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
“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 Gzira United, and it is not being withdrawn.
7 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.
Robert Bencun 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.
6 goals in one match, André on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Gzira United and Tarxien Rainbows.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gzira United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ilya Kalita is living that version at Gzira United, and it tends to show in the first month.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Adre Arido has just signed for Gzira United, and for once the answer mattered.
Robert Bencun 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Gzira United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chrisnovic N'sa 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gzira United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Gzira United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Mentz 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.
“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 Gzira United, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gzira United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ryan Grima 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mark Schembri 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.
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.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
Edoardo Colombo 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Gabriel Mentz 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.