Marked for Muhammed Cham
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match4 Nov 2027
A European night to remember for Trabzonspor
2‑1 against Zulte Waregem, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Match4 Nov 2027
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Zulte Waregem spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Squad8 Nov 2027
There were 7 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.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Age has not caught Mohamed Salah yet — 8.21
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.21 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad8 Nov 2027
“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; Trabzonspor are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Match7 Nov 2027
0‑1 to Konyaspor, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom8 Nov 2027
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Loan watch8 Nov 2027
“I watch every Trabzonspor game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Kayserispor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Mahmut Demiral to a room that had heard them before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market9 Aug 2027
Wagner Pina hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trabzonspor can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Galatasaray have kept their man, and Trabzonspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Stefan Savić commits to Trabzonspor for another 2 years.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tim Jabol-Folcarelli trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
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.
Market9 Aug 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tim Jabol-Folcarelli signs something — a contract at Trabzonspor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Trabzonspor have no good answer.
Squad9 Aug 2027
A season on the outside for Muhammed Cham
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Trabzonspor has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
The manager makes Stefan Savić a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Trabzonspor. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market12 Jul 2027
Basaksehir come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Trabzonspor did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Galatasaray have kept their man, and Trabzonspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kazeem Olaigbe and Trabzonspor agree another 4 years.
The dugout12 Jul 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
The clock runs on Muhammed Cham's contract
48 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.
The dugout12 Jul 2027
Paul Onuachu has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Trabzonspor will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market12 Jul 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tim Jabol-Folcarelli signs something — a contract at Trabzonspor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout12 Jul 2027
The manager makes Cenk Özkacar a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Trabzonspor. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Tim Jabol-Folcarelli has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market5 Jul 2027
Olympique Lyonnais pay $30.2M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Trabzonspor asked and Besiktas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market5 Jul 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 Trabzonspor can pretend not to have heard.
Market5 Jul 2027
Rapid Wien come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Trabzonspor did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The terraces5 Jul 2027
Supporters turn on the $30.2M sale of Ernest Muçi
He is going to Olympique Lyonnais, the club has $30.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Trabzonspor heard it as anything else.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Trabzonspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Muhammed Cham and Trabzonspor agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Too much change too quickly at Trabzonspor
7 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Jun 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 Crvena Zvezda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Jun 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Crvena Zvezda have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bloemfontein Celtic have kept their man, and Crvena Zvezda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market14 Jun 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Bamba Dieng reports back to Crvena Zvezda with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Market14 Jun 2027
The paperwork is done: Lazar Ranđelović joins from Vojvodina in a deal worth $1.2M. Now comes the harder part.
Boardroom14 Jun 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Viktor Stojanović has agreed terms with Radnicki 1923 for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Lazar Ranđelović arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lazar Ranđelović has, at Crvena Zvezda, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Hamad Abdulrahman and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Jun 2027
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout17 May 2027
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.
The dugout17 May 2027
The manager makes Muhammed Cham a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Crvena Zvezda. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The dugout17 May 2027
Ivan Guteša asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad17 May 2027
Adem Avdić wants to know why he earns less
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Crvena Zvezda have no good answer.
Market17 May 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aleksandar Katai signs something — a contract at Crvena Zvezda or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout17 May 2027
The manager plants his flag on Mirko Ivanić
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Mirko Ivanić’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crvena Zvezda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Muhammed Cham, and the manager let it.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Crvena Zvezda, and 4 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
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 Mohamed Abo Fani is on it.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Aleksandar Katai has written the date down.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Jovan Trač knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Crvena Zvezda, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Apr 2027
65 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Market5 Apr 2027
The name of Bamba Dieng has come up in conversations Crvena Zvezda were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Ivan Guteša: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Crvena Zvezda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market5 Apr 2027
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Crvena Zvezda hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad5 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Crvena Zvezda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vasilije Kostov is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Everybody at Crvena Zvezda saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad5 Apr 2027
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Timi Max Elšnik has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Crvena Zvezda will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Mihailo Ristić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jovan Trač is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
When it matters, Matheus plays
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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aleksandar Katai, and the manager let it.
Squad15 Mar 2027
The division's best last weekend was a Crvena Zvezda man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Marko Arnautović was the best thing in any of them.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A season on the outside for Tomás Händel
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Crvena Zvezda has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager makes Muhammed Cham a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Crvena Zvezda. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
The goals keep arriving from Jovan Šljivić’s exile
3 goals in 28 games at OFK Beograd — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Crvena Zvezda updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match18 Nov 2026
Out, 3‑3 to Napredak, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad23 Nov 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Crvena Zvezda — 7.97
1 for Mahmudu Bajo, marked 7.97, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Hamad Abdulrahman 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.
Match21 Nov 2026
Whatever happens, Crvena Zvezda do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match21 Nov 2026
Three points for Crvena Zvezda, 2‑0 the final word against IMT in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.39, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Marked 8.08 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Marko Arnautović out for 36 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Crvena Zvezda will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A muscle injury and 16 days out for Rade Krunić
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Crvena Zvezda will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Market26 Oct 2026
Rodrigão wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Iván Martos 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.
Looking ahead26 Oct 2026
All roads lead to Partizan
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Crvena Zvezda will be judged on one thing only.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Slobodan Vlahovic was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Crvena Zvezda dressing room was either.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Seol Yung-Woo
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Match24 Oct 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Napredak defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Oct 2026
Crvena Zvezda refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 17 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.
Squad5 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 Crvena Zvezda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Jovan Trač is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Mladost Lucani, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Crvena Zvezda dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Crvena Zvezda are still strangers to each other
18 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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad5 Oct 2026
International break empties Crvena Zvezda
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
87% of the income goes out in wages at Crvena Zvezda
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market21 Sep 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nemanja Radonjić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Nemanja Radonjić at his very best
Marked 8.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Crvena Zvezda.
Match19 Sep 2026
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Market21 Sep 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Bamba Dieng beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Chances created: 11. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
Match19 Sep 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Novi Pazar leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Mirko Ivanić 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
Triumph
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Marko Arnautović, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 3‑1 win over Zeleznicar Pancevo, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sochi had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Jovan Trač at 17 — 7.94
The hardest thing about being 17 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jovan Trač did not need any: 7.94, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The offer went to IMT 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Vojvodina wanted more than $2.0M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Qizilqum for Mahmudu Bajo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.