Marked for Christopher Braun
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑3 by Universitatea Craiova, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. CFR Cluj have done the hard part with Astra, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. CFR Cluj will try again when the window opens; Sporting Cristal may not be selling by then.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at CFR Cluj until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
CFR Cluj asked and Astra said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Alibek Aliev 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
The phone has started ringing about Răzvan Gligor again, and this time the name on the line is Pandurii. CFR Cluj are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Christopher Braun 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 ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CFR Cluj have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Alibek Aliev takes the afternoon — 8.93
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alibek Aliev provided it, and the 8.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market24 Aug 2026
CFR Cluj say no — this time
The offer from Dinamo Bucharest for Yuval Sade 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Sheriff Sinyan 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Dinamo Bucharest wanted more than $310.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
An offer of $29.0K for Mihai Toma
CFR Cluj have gone to FCSB with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alibek Aliev. 3‑2 against Dinamo Bucharest, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Dragos Coman from Astra for $1.2M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Nicolae Sula has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Astra 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The fee is $240.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Botosani drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad17 Aug 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 CFR Cluj this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$31.0K was the most the club would pay and Universitatea Craiova were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Match15 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Viitorul, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Yuval Sade has come up in conversations CFR Cluj were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Christopher Braun 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
18 seasons and 512 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
At 40 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.82, and nobody on the pitch better.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
CFR Cluj have gone to Nashville SC with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sheriff Sinyan commits to CFR Cluj for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at CFR Cluj
Sheriff Sinyan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match1 Aug 2026
FCSB left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. CFR Cluj have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at CFR Cluj training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christopher Braun 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.