From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
André Anderson gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. André Anderson has just signed for APOEL, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
APOEL offered $2.7M; Aris 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $246.8K — a club that wants Giorgos Malekkidis enough to be asked twice.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at APOEL training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aitor Córdoba 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at APOEL
Daniel Mancini and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
No place for André Anderson in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation APOEL are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A loan move for Luka Stojković is in the works
APOEL have made the call to Dinamo Zagreb. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Real Madrid have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Aris 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $166.4K — a club that wants Nicolae Milinceanu enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at APOEL
Aitor Córdoba 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Omonoia 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 targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Apollon 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Omonia 29M paid $270.0K and APOEL took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Aitor Córdoba has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. APOEL know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market17 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. APOEL have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.0M — a club that wants Edi Semedo enough to be asked twice.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marquinhos commits to APOEL for another 4 years.
Market10 Aug 2026
Ypsonas come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and APOEL did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at APOEL
Kostas Stafylidis 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Max Walef arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Max Walef has, at APOEL, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A row about effort at APOEL
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aitor Córdoba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
Apollon will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Mateo Pérez has pre-agreed a move to APOEL, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panathinaikos have kept their man, and APOEL go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Konstantinos Laifis and APOEL agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marquinhos in a row with a teammate
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at APOEL, another week without a signature from Álvaro Carrillo.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“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 APOEL know it.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Konstantinos Laifis’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Lecce: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
In brief
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Squad
5 new faces, and APOEL are still learning each other
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The dugout
Marquinhos knocks on the manager's door