33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Anagennisi Karditsa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Paul Reulet and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Astals 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 these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
The dugout23 Nov 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 Manolis Giakoumakis to a room that had heard them before.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against PAS Giannina in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Anagennisi Karditsa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anagennisi Karditsa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikos Golias 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.
Makedonikos next, and one man in the Anagennisi Karditsa dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Labros Antonopoulos has written the date down.
They sit in position 8 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Anagennisi Karditsa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 3, 13 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.
7.26, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anagennisi Karditsa 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 David Astals was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Giorgos Moustakopoulos. 1‑0 against Kampaniakos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Half the programme played, position 3, 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.
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Anagennisi Karditsa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Anagennisi Karditsa has to find a result from somewhere.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Successful dribbles: 24. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad2 Nov 2026
David Astals 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Vasilis Prekates and Anagennisi Karditsa agree another 4 years.
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.
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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Anagennisi Karditsa can tell you which week it ends in.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikos Golias was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
At 24 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Anagennisi Karditsa have a decision that made itself.
At 22 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.
Paul Reulet was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Astals 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 Anagennisi Karditsa can tell you which week it ends in.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Iraklis.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anagennisi Karditsa 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 David Astals was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cristian García trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Niki Volos in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zé Leite signs something — a contract at Anagennisi Karditsa or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 Kostas Baltas is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
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.
15 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Joseph Na’a
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Joseph Na’a has come out of that comparison in the side, and Anagennisi Karditsa have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 had been thinking. Nikos Golias 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad28 Sep 2026
David Astals 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 Anagennisi Karditsa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Asteras Tripolis B? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Astals 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.
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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Anagennisi Karditsa has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Panargiakos moved on, Thanasis Papadakos reports back to Anagennisi Karditsa, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kareem Ben-Kmayal. 1‑0 against PAS Giannina, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 7.91. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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.” Manolis Giakoumakis, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikos Golias 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 Kostas Balomenos’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Anagennisi Karditsa needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zé Leite signs something — a contract at Anagennisi Karditsa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Anagennisi Karditsa will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
16 in and 0 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lanús keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Anagennisi Karditsa offered $720.0K; Levadiakos 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. David Astals 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.
Anagennisi Karditsa asked and Partizan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Anagennisi Karditsa scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer went to Levadiakos 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.
Anagennisi Karditsa had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Levski, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Paul Reulet and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Astals is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Anagennisi Karditsa will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $100.0K — a club that wants Giorgos Kosidis enough to be asked twice.
Paul Reulet 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kalamata have kept their man, and Anagennisi Karditsa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Anagennisi Karditsa will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
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.
Anagennisi Karditsa have made the call to Levski. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Nasos Leonidopoulos’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Anagennisi Karditsa needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Zé Leite and Anagennisi Karditsa agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Anagennisi Karditsa asked and Panserraikos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Anagennisi Karditsa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Astals 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 level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Anagennisi Karditsa know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
The offer from Atromitos for Pyry Soiri 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 Anagennisi Karditsa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sotirios Lampropoulos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Stavros Vrousai 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. Konstantinos Pelkas is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Anagennisi Karditsa have made the call to Kalamata. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Giannis Sourdis is in the works
Anagennisi Karditsa have gone to Panetolikos 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Anestis Vlachomitros and Anagennisi Karditsa agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Pablo Clavería 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Nikos Golias 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.