Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Clinton Duodu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Apollon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Dec 2029
Words at Apollon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Connor Goldson 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Joel Asoro. 2‑1 against AEL, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Apollon will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Apollon people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Apollon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Konstantinos Balogiannis 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Apollon will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Lazar Marković is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Apollon. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Apollon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Apollon have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Apollon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Apollon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words at Apollon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Connor Goldson 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.
Add another name to the list: Khazar have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nicolás Casa. The answer from Apollon has not changed — yet.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Mateo Marić
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Apollon people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Position 2, 56 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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 Apollon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Konstantinos Panagi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Apollon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
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.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Apollon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Apollon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Apollon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Apollon people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Apollon, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Apollon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
In brief
SquadAli Youssef falls out with a teammate over standards
Position 2, 54 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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 Apollon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Apollon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Apollon 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 Diga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Gaëtan Weissbeck is on it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Ermis waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Apollon is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer went to Oliveirense this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Apollon can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Apollon have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deal that would have taken Alen Ožbolt to Paralimni has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Apollon with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Apollon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Antonín Barák 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.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Evangelos Andreou will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Apollon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Apollon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuel Aiwu 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.
Antonín Barák 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Antonín Barák trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Apollon would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Apollon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Apollon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Garry Rodrigues 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Apollon can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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 Emanuel Aiwu is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Emanuel Aiwu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Angelos Neofytou has moved up it.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Apollon will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Apollon can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Apollon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Diga has, at Apollon, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Emanuel Aiwu 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 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 Gaëtan Weissbeck is on it.