Marked for Benny
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Mar 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Kifisia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Diego Macedo breaks a bone — 48 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Jorge Pombo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Diego Macedo out for 56 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kifisia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kifisia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Jorge Pombo 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kostas Thymianis 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Benny runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 16. 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
Squad25 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Diego Macedo out for 86 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kifisia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match23 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Kifisia
8 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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Benny runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market25 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kifisia can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Jorge Pombo 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Yasser Larouci 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.
Match23 Jan 2027
Asteras left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Dimitris Theodoridis was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
Diego Macedo breaks a bone — 115 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Dec 2026
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.
Match26 Dec 2026
4 matches without a win for Kifisia
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Kifisia are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Jorge Pombo 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Benny 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 ratings28 Dec 2026
Patrik Mijić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.24. 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
Patrik Mijić in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Benny 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tim Stegerer, and the manager let it.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Kifisia know it.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Shots: 10, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Dec 2026
A 2-goal lead gone for Kifisia
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. AEK kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Kifisia will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad7 Dec 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Jorge Pombo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benny 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Benny was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.92. 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Mattia Bottani
“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.
Match5 Dec 2026
It needed Patrik Mijić to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against AEK, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
24 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jorge Pombo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Kostas Thymianis at his very best
Marked 9.69. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Kifisia.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yasser Larouci 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Benny
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
AEL Larisa made Kifisia work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Too much change too quickly at Kifisia
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Fanis Tzandaris dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Sep 2026
Kifisia bow out of the cup
PAOK go through and Kifisia go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Martín Espinoza at 21 — 7.72
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Martín Espinoza did not need any: 7.72, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jorge Pombo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kifisia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thanos Petsos 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
No hiding place for Benny
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benny, and the manager let it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Mattia Bottani, 35, rolls back the years — 8.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.87 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Patrik Mijić 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Kifisia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yasser Larouci 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near Benny
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Sep 2026
Three points for Kifisia, 1‑0 the final word against Atromitos in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Jorge Pombo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.45. 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jorge Pombo and Kifisia agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jorge Pombo 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Benny's contract
49 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.