The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
The words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Viktor Gazdag recited it perfectly.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Spremo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody at Ajka saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Zoltan Dibusz leaves with $6.0K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sakhalou Niakaté is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Milan Spremo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Zsolt Tar 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.
Something was said to Máté Szabó and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Position 16 and 20 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Máté Szabó 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 last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 20 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Terrance Pegard is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Spremo 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 Ajka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
10 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Zoltan Dibusz after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Ajka 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.
21 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Csákvár were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ajka can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nemanja Žunić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Milan Spremo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I 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 Ajka know it.
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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajka can pretend not to have heard.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Ajka may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ajka can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Máté Szabó 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 afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Nemanja Žunić 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. Milan Spremo 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.
400 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zoltán Csizmadia 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.
10 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 dugout15 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Zoltan Dibusz to a room that had heard them before.
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 Dominik Földi.
18 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajka have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sakhalou Niakaté is living that version at Ajka, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Ajka asked and Nyíregyháza 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 words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Nemanja Žunić 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.
Diosgyor will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Márk Kristóf has pre-agreed a move to Ajka, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Serhiy Bolbat was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 16 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajka can pretend not to have heard.
Nemanja Žunić 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.
Vasas wanted more than $65.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Serhiy Bolbat falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
1 for Gergely Tóth, marked 7.43, 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.
The chase for Máté Gyurkó ended with $240.0K changing hands and Kisvárda out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer went to Vasas 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nyíregyháza have kept their man, and Ajka go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nikolasz Nagy 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.
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajka can pretend not to have heard.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Rémi Baclet has, at Ajka, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Spremo 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.
Level with 88 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Ajka had all but put away. Tiszakécske will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
Nemanja Žunić is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
13 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Ajka, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Spremo 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.
Zsolt Tar 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nemanja Žunić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Zoltan Dibusz after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Benjámin Gólik is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Spremo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Ajka is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
1‑2 to Soroksár, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Zoltan Dibusz left the room before anybody could ask which.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ajka can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Spremo 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ajka can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
48 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajka lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nemanja Žunić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ajka can tell you which week it ends in.
Dominik Földi 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.
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.
55 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajka lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nemanja Žunić 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 Milan Spremo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Half the programme played, position 11, 13 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Milan Spremo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
David López falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Zoltan Dibusz was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Ajka dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than David López
The words a physio says slowly. 70 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nemanja Žunić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Zsolt Tar’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ajka needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dominik Földi signs something — a contract at Ajka 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 Tamás Vid Tóth trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Ajka the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Spremo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Zsolt Tar 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.
Level with 95 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Ajka had all but put away. Kecskeméti TE will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
It needed Krisztián Kirchner to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Kecskeméti TE, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Zoltan Dibusz after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The words a physio says slowly. 85 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.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Ajka has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Milan Spremo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every 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.
9 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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Zoltan Dibusz left the room before anybody could ask which.
93 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ajka lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Zoltan Dibusz after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajka have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Milan Spremo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nemanja Žunić 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 Milan Spremo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Nemanja Žunić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 dugoutPatrick Gânţe knocks on the manager’s door
Milan Spremo 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nemanja Žunić falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Ajka 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.
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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Zoltan Dibusz chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Milan Spremo 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 Ajka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Somebody else is better right now than David López
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.
Nobody at Ajka is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Krisztián Kirchner provided it, and the 8.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Spremo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. József Balázs 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Ajka are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Benjámin Gólik is 18, and Ajka have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
$180.0K was the most the club would pay and ZTE 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nemanja Žunić 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.
Ajka ran out of time with Kisvárda. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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 Zoltan Dibusz to a room that had heard them 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 Zoltán Csizmadia is on it.
Szeged-Csanád GA next, and one man in the Ajka 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 Ajka, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have shaken hands with Kisvárda; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Ajka close the window on a squad of their own making
23 in and 2 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 $227.5K — a club that wants Milán Szekszárdi enough to be asked twice.
$210.0K was the most the club would pay and Paksi 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Milan Spremo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Dominik Földi 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Ajka will try again when the window opens; Kazincbarcika may not be selling by then.
The clubs have shaken hands with Kazincbarcika; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.22 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Zoltán Csizmadia scored, was marked 7.67, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Voždovac is saying, and nobody at Ajka is enjoying the guessing.
$180.0K on the table at Paksi. 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $207.0K — a club that wants Diogo Silva enough to be asked twice.
The chase for David López ended with $280.0K changing hands and ZTE out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Ajka have gone to ZTE 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.
$180.0K was the most the club would pay and Mezőkövesd 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Diosgyor have kept their man, and Ajka go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Botond Baráth 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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The clubs have shaken hands with ZTE; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Ajka asked and Karcag said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Milan Spremo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Ajka know which stage they are at.
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.
Supporters turn on the $870.0K sale of Dominik Csóka
He is going to Puskas Akademia, the club has $870.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Puskas Akademia pay $870.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Nikolasz Nagy 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 22 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mate Lang has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Viktor Bese has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Bence Orban is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dominik Földi is living that version at Ajka, and it tends to show in the first month.
Ajka have gone to Vasas 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Zoltan Dibusz after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.