It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APOEL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Christos Karanatsios is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konstantinos Laifis 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.
Marquinhos 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Peter Olayinka. 1‑0 against Ermis, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Peter Olayinka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. 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.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Diego Rosa
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APOEL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konstantinos Laifis 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.
Marquinhos was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APOEL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Peter Olayinka 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.
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and APOEL 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.
Marquinhos 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Christos Karanatsios is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about APOEL and Ethnikos Achnas in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
1 for Serhiy Kryvtsov, marked 7.75, 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.
Pieros Sotiriou 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konstantinos Laifis 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.
Omonoia held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. APOEL answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Santiago Colidio is living that version at APOEL, and it tends to show in the first month.
Marquinhos 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 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.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Marios Laifis 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at APOEL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konstantinos Laifis 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.
Add another name to the list: Aris have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nikolas Koutsakos. The answer from APOEL has not changed — yet.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. APOEL will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and APOEL 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.
Marquinhos 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.
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. APOEL will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Karol Mets is 33 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.
Marquinhos 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. Dálcio 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 APOEL this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Diego Rosa wants continental football; whether APOEL can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Konstantinos Laifis 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.