“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.
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 Sebastiano Esposito is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Fedor Lapoukhov’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.
“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.
David Carmo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oleksandr Zubkov signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
The coaching staff have set Lorenzo Pirola something separate to do. Whether it is a weakness being addressed or a strength being sharpened, nobody outside the building will know until it shows up on a Saturday.
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.
“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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at AEK that is a harder question to answer.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at AEK the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Stavros Pilios’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Sharpest man there all week, by every account. It is the quietest line on this page and it usually runs the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
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.
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.
Manolis Saliakas has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oleksandr Zubkov signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at AEK and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
David Carmo 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.
“54 caps is more than I ever expected, and it is time somebody else had them.” At 34 he is finished with his country and nowhere near finished with AEK.
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.
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.
Squad26 Mar 2029
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.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at AEK and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 55 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all 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.
“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 Lovro Majer is on it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oleksandr Zubkov signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
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.
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.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sebastiano Esposito. 2‑0 against Levadiakos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout26 Feb 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Lorenzo Pirola 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.84, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Marked 8.28 — 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; David Carmo will call it something else in private.
11 clean sheets from 23 appearances at PAOK. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and OFK Beograd waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Olympiacos moved on, Niclas Eliasson reports back to AEK, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Pablo Maffeo 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.
10 clean sheets from 22 appearances at PAOK. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Oleksandr Zubkov had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and PAOK were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Position 2, 44 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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 7 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Manolis Saliakas has just signed for AEK, and for once the answer mattered.
“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.
Pablo Maffeo 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.
“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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Charalampos Lykogiannis had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
AEK asked and Fluminense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
$8.5M was the most the club would pay and Olympiacos 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.
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.
PAOK 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting David Carmo's mistake
“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.
AEK offered $22.5M; Lanús said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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 terraces22 Jan 2029
A cup hiding at Asteras leaves AEK explaining themselves
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
$520.0K on the table at Olympiacos. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Sebastiano Esposito 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and OFK Beograd waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
AEK offered $18.7M; Olympiacos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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.
$3.9M on the table at Olympiacos. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stavros Pnevmonidis has just signed for AEK, and for once the answer mattered.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $19.3M — a club that wants Emam Ashour enough to be asked twice.
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 offer went to Lanús 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.
AEK have gone to Olympiacos 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.
Olympiacos 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.
The offer went to Olympiacos 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $4.1M has been paid because Pablo Maffeo is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Pablo Maffeo has, at AEK, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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.
35 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. AEK will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 16 combined actions and a mark of 7.82, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Roger Fernandes has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
David Carmo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting David Carmo'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.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sebastiano Esposito provided it, and the 8.66 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
David Carmo 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.
8.38. 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.
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.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid AEK $19.0K. Alberto Brignoli left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
David Carmo 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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Douglas Santos
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 14 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“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.
Sebastiano Esposito 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Oleksandr Zubkov 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.
27 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Dimitris Kaloskamis has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
David Carmo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Levadiakos next, and one man in the AEK dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
David Carmo 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.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout13 Nov 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the AEK dressing room was either.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Julián Chicco is somebody else's player now, and $48.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.28 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
8.03. 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
20 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“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.
“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.
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.
The goal that put PAOK ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when AEK equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
David Carmo 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.
Level with 87 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon AEK had all but put away. Panathinaikos will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes AEK will be judged on one thing only.
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 Oleksandr Zubkov is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mijat Gaćinović’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and AEK needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Oleksandr Zubkov’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
8 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.
“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.
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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Lovro Majer’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to AEK.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Roger Fernandes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. 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.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
7 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.
“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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Dimitris Kaloskamis has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
Squad2 Oct 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Lovro Majer
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Lovro Majer has come out of that comparison in the side, and AEK have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“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.
6 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. 8.41 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
David Carmo 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.
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Lovro Majer was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
“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.
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.
David Carmo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sebastiano Esposito. 1‑0 against Kalamata, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Kalamata next, and one man in the AEK dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $1.2M of what AEK paid for Julián Bartolo is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
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.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 21 signed and 23 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.
“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.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at AEK training over how hard people work
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FK Csíkszereda waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. River Plate have kept their man, and AEK go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 name of Charalampos Lykogiannis has come up in conversations AEK were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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 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.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oleksandr Zubkov signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at AEK that is a harder question to answer.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Apostolos Diamantakos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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 Kervin Arriaga is on it.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Douglas Santos 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.
The offer from Panionios 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.
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. 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 phone has started ringing about Elián Sosa again, and this time the name on the line is Niki Volos. AEK are listening politely and promising nothing.
Douglas Santos is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $5.5M has been paid because Fredrik Jensen is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
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 a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Fredrik Jensen is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
AEK have gone to Orenburg 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.
David Carmo 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.
16 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The 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.
$5.5M on the table at Aris Thessaloniki. 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 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.
David Carmo 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.
AEK offered $380.0K; Panionios said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aris Thessaloniki have kept their man, and AEK go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
Olympiacos paid $3.6M and AEK took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $405.0K — a club that wants Julien Ngoy enough to be asked twice.
AEK have gone to Panionios 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.
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.
“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 Panetolikos for Julián Chicco 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 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.
Sebastiano Esposito 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 a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lovro Majkić is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
In brief
The dugoutLorenzo Pirola has become a man the manager trusts
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.
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 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
15 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
The dugoutLovro Majer has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. AEK have paid $29.6M for Sebastiano Esposito, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
“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. Sebastiano Esposito is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Christos Palaiologou 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.
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.
Sebastiano Esposito was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $29.6M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
23 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: Ajax keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
$27.3M on the table at Cagliari. 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 cover and nobody is pretending it is. $23.8M has been paid because Roger Fernandes is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Panetolikos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Roger Fernandes is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from Panserraikos for Dereck Kutesa 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.
AEK asked and Olympiacos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
32 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 shaken hands with Ajax; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The deal with Al-Ittihad is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
“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.
53 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market12 Jun 2028
David Carmo arrives at AEK in a $5.2M statement of intent
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. AEK have paid $5.2M for David Carmo, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. David Carmo has just signed for AEK, and for once the answer mattered.
The offer went to Al-Ittihad this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
$2.2M settles it between the clubs for Noah Fadiga
Aris Thessaloniki 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.
$5.2M on the table at Olympiacos. 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 offer went to Niki Volos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AEK can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Free State Stars for Ricardinho 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 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.
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.
28 games, 12 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at AEK now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Federico Bicoro 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.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and James Penrice trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at AEK would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
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.
“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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. AEK will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Kervin Arriaga and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody 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.
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.
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.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee AEK could ask drops and the wages Petros Mantalos can ask rise.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
Kervin Arriaga 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 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.
Lorenzo Pirola 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 Oleksandr Zubkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 clean sheets from 29 appearances at Rapid Bucharest. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns 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 Oleksandr Zubkov is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. AEK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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.
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.
41 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.
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.
“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 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.
Federico Bicoro and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zini trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
29 appearances at Rapid Bucharest and the goals have stopped going in. AEK lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
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 Oleksandr Zubkov is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
1‑3 against Real Madrid, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
“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.
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 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. 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.
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 never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Argyris Argyriou commits to AEK for another 3 years.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos to a room that had heard them 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.
“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.
12 goals in 28 games at Hradec Králové — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AEK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Oleksandr Zubkov'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.
0‑4 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.
“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 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.17 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: João Mário. 1‑0 against OFI, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 offer from Sagan Tosu for Ricardinho 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Barnabás Varga reports back to AEK with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. AEK will try again when the window opens; Olympiacos may not be selling by then.
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.
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.
“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 offer went to Olympiacos 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.
The deal that would have taken Dereck Kutesa to Panserraikos has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to AEK with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
13 seasons and 414 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.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation AEK did not have in the autumn.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 2 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Federico Bicoro has just signed for AEK, and for once the answer mattered.
The chase for Federico Bicoro ended with $1.1M changing hands and Iraklis out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“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.
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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 7 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
“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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.46 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
$1.1M on the table at Iraklis. 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.” Yverdon had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
The offer from Radnicki Nis for Ricardinho 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: João Mário. 2‑0 against Atromitos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Barnabás Varga provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 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 a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ricardinho is living that version at AEK, and it tends to show in the first month.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.1M — a club that wants Natanaël Thio enough to be asked twice.
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.
AEK have gone to Asteras 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.
$2.5M on the table at Panionios. 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 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.
Position 2, 33 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oleksandr Zubkov provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Barnabás Varga 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.
11 goals in 15 games at Chania — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at AEK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Julián Bartolo
Lorenzo Pirola 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.
8.55. 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Volos NPS tried to reorganise, AEK did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
0‑3 against LOSC Lille. 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 midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 18 actions, 7.30, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“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.
Position 3, 27 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
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. 8.29 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
1 for Robert Ljubičić, marked 7.89, 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.
“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 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 watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bellinzona runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
2‑0 against Partizan, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Oleksandr Zubkov was at the centre of the description.
Position 2, 23 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.
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.
“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.
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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
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 ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lovro Majer signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Robert Ljubičić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at AEK would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
14 appearances at Rapid Bucharest and the goals have stopped going in. AEK lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
0‑1 away to the standard of Antwerp. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Zini provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Derby days make names, and Zini made his against Panathinaikos. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
0‑0 against Antwerp, 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.
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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Panathinaikos were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Amor Layouni 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.
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 Robert Ljubičić.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Panagiotis Papagiannopoulos, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutBarnabás Varga dropped after a run of poor form
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 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 fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes AEK will be judged on one thing only.
“I watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Chania runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
“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 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Oleksandr Zubkov signs something — a contract at AEK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
10 appearances at Rapid Bucharest and the goals have stopped going in. AEK lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
1‑2 against LOSC Lille, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
“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.
“I watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bellinzona runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Petros Mantalos 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Dereck Kutesa obliged against Panargiakos. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is AEK.
Two goals and a mark of 8.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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 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 Asteras; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“I watch every AEK game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Anagennisi Karditsa 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.
In brief
The dugoutRobert Ljubičić is still being punished for one mistake
19 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
2‑0 against Partizan, 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 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 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.
“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. Argyris Argyriou is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. AEK will try again when the window opens; Olympiacos may not be selling by then.
In brief
Player ratingsOleksandr Zubkov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Oleksandr Zubkov reports back to AEK with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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.
AEK offered $350.0K; Kavala said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Petros Mantalos had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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 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 clock did what Vasco da Gama would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
AEK close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 37 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $360.0K — a club that wants Fran González enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Kavala 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.
Kervin Arriaga 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.
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.
Transfer targets30 Aug 2027
$11.9M settles it between the clubs for Santiago Sosa
Vasco da Gama 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sparta Prague have kept their man, and AEK go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Oleksandr Zubkov has come up in conversations AEK were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Lazaros Rota had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
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.
The offer went to FCSB 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.
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.
AEK asked and Las Palmas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer from Iraklis 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.
Lorenzo Pirola 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 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 6 say he has earned the hearing.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Napredak had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
$6.8M on the table at Red Bull Salzburg. 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 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.
Aris Thessaloniki paid $620.0K and AEK took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
9 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.
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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Kampaniakos had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Hamed Fofana
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Pescara had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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 Anagennisi Karditsa for Lazaros Rota 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 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 name of Mijat Gaćinović has come up in conversations AEK were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
Add another name to the list: Pescara have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Thomas Strakosha. The answer from AEK has not changed — yet.
Lorenzo Pirola and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. AEK know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
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.
Kervin Arriaga 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.
11 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 Chania runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Oleksandr Zubkov is on it.
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.
62 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
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.
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 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 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.
AEK offered $7.8M; Olympiacos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Farul Constanța had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“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 Kalamata for Petros Mantalos 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.
Lorenzo Pirola 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.
14 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.
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.
“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 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Lorenzo Pirola 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.
21 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.
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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Răzvan Marin had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hellas Syros waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AEK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
$600.0K was the most the club would pay and Aris Thessaloniki 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.