1‑0 against Partizani Tirana, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Clayton was at the centre of the description.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Panagiotis Donis scored in the 88th minute, AEL Larisa had already begun thinking about the journey home, and AEK took the lot.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.51 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him 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 The request is on a desk at AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at AEK pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Marked 8.20 — 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 The request is on a desk at AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.36 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match24 Nov 2029
Another one collected away from home
6 on the bounce on the road for AEK. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
19 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Aris Thessaloniki spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 8 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8‑0 against Novi Pazar, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match10 Nov 2029
Another one collected away from home
5 on the bounce on the road for AEK. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
18 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Filipe Relvas 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.
“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 AEK, and 0 appearances in 20 say he has earned the hearing.
6‑0 against Novi Pazar, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lovro Majer 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about AEK and Novi Pazar in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
17 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Miguel Baeza has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Luka Jović.
Position 2, 22 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.16 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.74 for the rest of it.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
5‑0 against Partizani Tirana, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.75 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and AEK supporters have already started telling it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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 Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK 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 AEK can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Panathinaikos on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
0‑6 against Ajax. The honest reading is not that the players were poor; it is that the distance between this club and that one is currently measured in things money takes years to buy.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK 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 AEK can pretend not to have heard.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.50 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; AEK are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Spyridon Papagiannopoulos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 52 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Clayton provided it, and the 9.21 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Giorgos Masouras has, at AEK, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. AEL Larisa moved on, Antonis Tsiftsis reports back to AEK, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Lovro Majer 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.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Leonidas Nikolaou is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK 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 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.25 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 21 gone
That is the business done at AEK 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Esteghlal Khuzestan had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.23 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and AEL Larisa waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Olympiacos for James Penrice 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Antonis Tsiftsis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 17 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Filipe Relvas 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
AEK and PAOK have settled on $3.5M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Christos Papadopoulos has agreed terms with Panserraikos for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The offer from Kudrivka for Agustín Chávez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
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 Lovro Majer is on it.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Paolo Fernandes is somebody else's player now, and $900.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 111 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 2, 62 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
AEK had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at PAOK, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
“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; AEK are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Răzvan Marin's mistake
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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.
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The phone has started ringing about Karem Zoabi again, and this time the name on the line is ND Gorica. AEK are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Radnik Surdulica had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jan Hurtado wants continental football; whether AEK can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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 Thomas Strakosha is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sol de America had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
AEK have gone to PAOK 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Agustín Chávez is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Agustín Chávez had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Toni Fuidias has, at AEK, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The offer from Puskas Akademia for Zois Karargyris 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.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
At 23 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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. Karem Zoabi is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Filipe Relvas 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.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Karem Zoabi has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
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 Harold Moukoudi is on it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Clayton had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Olympiacos for Lovro Majer 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.
With 9 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.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Filipe Relvas 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
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.
Nobody at AEK 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nectar Triantis, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 May 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Răzvan Marin's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Nobody at AEK 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.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Gaëtan Laborde obliged against Panathinaikos. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is AEK.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 121th minute. Panathinaikos will replay every second of the added time for a week.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. AEK had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
“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 AEK know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at AEK 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.
Position 2, 62 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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 Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
In brief
The dugoutRăzvan Marin knocks on the manager's door
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Gaëtan Laborde 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
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 Laborde is on it.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Lovro Majer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Apr 2029
Filipe Relvas 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 2, 62 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
9 new faces, and AEK 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.
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 Harold Moukoudi is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Chumi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
MarketAgustín Chávez returns from a loan that taught him nothing
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
7 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. AEK told Chumi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Haugesund for Stefan Smarkalev 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.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Filipe Relvas 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 Thomas Strakosha is on it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chornomorets waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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; AEK are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The enquiry everybody at AEK was hoping would not arrive has arrived. He has never pretended he did not want to go back, and now there is somewhere to go back to.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at AEK, another week without a signature from Harold Moukoudi.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and LNZ waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: LNZ have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Stefan Smarkalev. The answer from AEK has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 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.
“I watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at MTK Budapest runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Position 2 on 62 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Two goals and a mark of 8.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.65, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Filipe Relvas 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.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Volos NPS is saying, and nobody at AEK is enjoying the guessing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 7 signed and 10 gone
That is the business done at AEK 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.81 beside his name.
“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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Kolos is saying, and nobody at AEK is enjoying the guessing.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
AEK had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Slovan Bratislava, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Chumi has, at AEK, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Gaëtan Laborde 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 not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Thanasis Karamanis comes from Atromitos for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Kolos have accepted the money. What AEK do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
$16.4M on the table at Slovan Bratislava. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
7 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Derby days make names, and Luka Jović made his against Panathinaikos. 3‑1, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
The offer from Olympiacos for Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Position 2, 50 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and AEK supporters have already started telling 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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 AEK, 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 AEK 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 Diogo Nascimento was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The goal that put Panetolikos ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when AEK equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Petros Mantalos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It finished 3‑2, and it was Kaan Kairinen’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to AEK.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Răzvan Marin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.28. 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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.
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.
2‑1 against Rosenborg, 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.
Match10 Dec 2028
Luka Jović wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Luka Jović found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Rosenborg went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vélez waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Two goals and a mark of 8.65 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Position 3, 38 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.
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.
Involvement in 3 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.93 beside his name.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.80 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Charalampos Lykogiannis and AEK agree another 2 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
2‑1 against ADO Den Haag, 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.77 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Petros Mantalos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lovro Majer 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 not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Clayton provided it, and the 9.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
1 for Răzvan Marin, marked 7.77, 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.
Lovro Majer 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.
2‑5. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gaëtan Laborde provided it, and the 9.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals in one match, Luka Jović on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of AEK and Real Madrid.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Petros Mantalos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Filipe Relvas 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Something was said to Diogo Nascimento and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether AEK can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
0‑5 against Real Madrid. The honest reading is not that the players were poor; it is that the distance between this club and that one is currently measured in things money takes years to buy.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aboubakary Koita will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lovro Majer 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filipe Relvas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at AEK can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lovro Majer 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Olympiacos next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at AEK can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Álex Pastor has, at AEK, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Gaëtan Laborde 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Stav Toriel wants continental football; whether AEK can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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 watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Tbilisi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
0‑1 against Rosenborg, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
A brace, and Miguel Baeza takes the afternoon — 8.38
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Miguel Baeza provided it, and the 8.38 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Petros Mantalos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Lovro Majer 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between AEK and Panserraikos, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
1‑1 against ADO Den Haag, 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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 was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A brace, and Kaan Kairinen takes the afternoon — 8.39
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kaan Kairinen provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Zois Karargyris had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him 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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
A brace, and Luka Jović takes the afternoon — 8.82
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luka Jović provided it, and the 8.82 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
14 seasons and 403 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.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
AEK close the window on a squad of their own making
21 in and 18 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Luton Town keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aboubakary Koita will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.66 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Relvas 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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
$12.9M on the table at Luton Town. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Pelayo is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from PAOK for Zini 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.
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.
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Partizan is saying, and nobody at AEK is enjoying the guessing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
At 32 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
The offer went to Partizan 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Atromitos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Zois Karargyris had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nectar Triantis is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olympiacos have kept their man, and AEK go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer went to AEL 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Zois Karargyris is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The words a physio says slowly. 65 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Panserraikos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Position 3, 53 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 21 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The phone has started ringing about Jesper Zwart again, and this time the name on the line is Smorgon. AEK are listening politely and promising nothing.
Nobody at AEK 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.
76 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slavia Prague is saying, and nobody at AEK is enjoying the guessing.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Panserraikos for João Mário 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 16 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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Miguel Baeza has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
85 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
$5.3M on the table at Slavia Prague. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” AEL had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Faitout Maouassa is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
AEK have gone to Pafos 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.
“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 AEK, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Aris Thessaloniki for Kerim Mrabti 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.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
94 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AEK have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him 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 AEK, 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 AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Zois Karargyris is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Position 3, 53 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.
The offer from Panserraikos for João Basso 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.
Lovro Majer 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 not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
5 new faces, and AEK 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.
In brief
The dugoutLovro Majer has become a man the manager trusts
110 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Olympiacos had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The offer from Asteras for Stavros Pilios 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Kervin Arriaga wants continental football; whether AEK can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at AEK 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at AEK. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutJames Penrice knocks on the manager’s door
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
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.
7 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutJames Penrice asks for a word with the manager
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Oleksandr Zubkov
128 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer from Olympiacos for Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aboubakary Koita will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AEK heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Luka Jović is on it.
Lazaros Rota damages knee ligaments — 136 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 136 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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether AEK can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Squad29 May 2028
7 new faces, and AEK 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.
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.
In brief
MarketAgustín Chávez returns from a loan that taught him nothing
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. AEK had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Olympiacos; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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 Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AEK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 AEK would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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 AEK have no good answer.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Lovro Majer’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lovro Majer 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AEK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Position 3, 53 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lovro Majer 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.
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.
“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 AEK know it.
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 Thomas Strakosha is on it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Dimitris Kaloskamis has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. David Simão has agreed terms with Panathinaikos for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
Lovro Majer is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“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 AEK, and 1 appearances in 15 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad24 Apr 2028
6 new faces, and AEK 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AEK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Gaëtan Laborde 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 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
SquadHakim Sahabo has seen what the next man earns
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AEK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aboubakary Koita will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AEK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lovro Majer 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation AEK are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dimitris Kaloskamis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Mark Gliha has written the date down.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Lovro Majer 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. AEK told Lovro Majer something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order AEK prefer.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Diogo Nascimento wants continental football; whether AEK can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kervin Arriaga, and the manager let it.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
Lovro Majer is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
7 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.
“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 AEK, and 1 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Luka Jović is on it.
In brief
The dugoutRăzvan Marin knocks on the manager’s door
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK 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 Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 7 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. AEK will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Lovro Majer 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.
17 goals in 29 games at Adana Demirspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AEK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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 AEK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Panathinaikos will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Sverrir Ingi Ingason has pre-agreed a move to AEK, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. AEK will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, 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 Charalampos Lykogiannis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Arinaldo Rrapaj has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.83 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Kerim Mrabti has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Lovro Majer 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.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Luka Jović
Gaëtan Laborde 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charalampos Lykogiannis 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.
11 goals in 14 games at Dinamo Batumi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AEK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Lovro Majer's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bunyodkor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad28 Feb 2028
5 new faces, and AEK 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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AEK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 3 on 53 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.83 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.86 for the rest of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AEK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.60 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AEK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Amor Layouni has agreed terms with Aris Thessaloniki for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Two goals and a mark of 9.09 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.” AEK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Position 3, 47 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AEK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
AEK close the window on a squad of their own making
8 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Miguel Baeza has, at AEK, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
$33.1M was the most the club would pay and Colorado Rapids 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AEK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The fee is $2.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Volos NPS drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
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.
$33.1M on the table at Colorado Rapids. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The clubs have shaken hands with Volos NPS; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Volos NPS is saying, and nobody at AEK is enjoying the guessing.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AEK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.