Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Bartolo 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.
“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; Asteras are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Dejan Lovren was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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.
Julián Bartolo 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 makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Asteras will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kalvin Ketu, and the manager let it.
The dugout1 Apr 2030
Dejan Lovren loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Dejan Lovren's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Nobody at Asteras 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 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 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 Evgeniy Yablonskiy is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras 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 Benjamin Mbunga Kimpioka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Julián Bartolo 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Asteras, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Asteras 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.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Julián Bartolo 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.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Jonjoe Kenny was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Asteras will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Panagiotis Mantazelis and Asteras agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Asteras told Diallo Sanoussi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Feb 2030
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin Mbunga Kimpioka 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 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 Asteras know it.
Squad18 Feb 2030
5 new faces, and Asteras 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.
“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.
Julián Bartolo 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. Mohamed Ismail is living that version at Asteras, and it tends to show in the first month.
Asteras ran out of time with Olympiacos. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
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 Julián Bartolo.
9 combined actions and 7.42. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“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; Asteras are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Asteras and Olympiacos have settled on $690.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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 Asteras hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Julián Bartolo 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 shirt still fits. Joaquín Gómez is back at Asteras, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
In brief
SquadWords at Asteras training over how hard people work
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Asteras and Olympiacos have settled on $310.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Asteras have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Vasilis Sourlis scored, was marked 7.91, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olympiacos keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Antony Angileri has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olympiacos keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Julián Bartolo 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Quique Fornos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Asteras told Marios Sofianos something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Julián Bartolo 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 Sokratis Dioudis.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Dec 2029
A brace, and Ricardinho takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ricardinho provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody 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 Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Asteras training over how hard people work
The offer from Antofagasta for Diallo Sanoussi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giannis Bouzoukis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Giannis Bouzoukis has his answer from Asteras; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout24 Dec 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Adán Gurdiel
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.
Successful dribbles: 33. 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.
Julián Bartolo 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.
Add another name to the list: Antofagasta have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Diallo Sanoussi. The answer from Asteras has not changed — yet.
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 no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The mood at Asteras has turned into something else
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.
Julián Bartolo 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alexandros Kapsaliaris commits to Asteras for another 4 years.
The dugout10 Dec 2029
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 1‑3 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
The dugout10 Dec 2029
Miki Muñoz 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.
Issiaga Sylla 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.
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.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Asteras can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Issiaga Sylla 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 8.20 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Mbunga Kimpioka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 9, 13 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The mood at Asteras has turned into something else
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.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.84 for the rest of it.
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.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras 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.
Issiaga Sylla 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: 20. 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Asteras will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
In brief
Boardroom104% of the income goes out in wages at Asteras
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Issiaga Sylla 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Atromitos had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
7.87, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Asteras had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout29 Oct 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Adán Gurdiel
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sokratis Dioudis 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 Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin Mbunga Kimpioka 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sokratis Dioudis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Ricardinho has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 21 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Issiaga Sylla 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ricardinho. 2‑0 against Levadiakos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑5 to Olympiacos, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Two goals and a mark of 9.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Issiaga Sylla 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Adán Gurdiel
BoardroomNobody left the Asteras dressing room in a hurry
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Asteras interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 77 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ricardinho wants continental football; whether Asteras can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Panathinaikos left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout24 Sep 2029
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 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
50 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces17 Sep 2029
The mood at Asteras has turned into something else
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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 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.
57 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras 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 Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Issiaga Sylla 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 Sotiris Kontouris was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Add another name to the list: Krylya Sovetov have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yéli Traoré. The answer from Asteras has not changed — yet.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Benjamin Mbunga Kimpioka has his answer from Asteras; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
65 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras 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 Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
13 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Volos NPS were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Asteras 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. 7.81 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 15 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Issiaga Sylla 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.
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.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
“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; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Asteras can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Julián Chicco 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.
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces20 Aug 2029
The mood at Asteras has turned into something else
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 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 Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ricardinho signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Nicholas Gioacchini has written the date down.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 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 Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Asteras asked and Chicago Fire said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
98 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras 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 Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Asteras and Olympiacos have settled on $780.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alexandros Kapsaliaris has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Asteras heard it as anything else.
Chicago Fire 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.
In brief
The dugoutJonjoe Kenny without the man who signed him
The words a physio says slowly. 105 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Erwan Traoré had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The phone has started ringing about Yéli Traoré again, and this time the name on the line is Naft Tehran. Asteras are listening politely and promising nothing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vasilis Sourlis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 114 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras 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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Asteras can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Julián Chicco 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 122 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asteras they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Antonis Papakanellos is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Juventus keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Olympiacos 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Spyridon Georgiadis is 19, and Asteras 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.
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Dimitrios Papanikolaou has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
$1.4M was the most the club would pay and Panathinaikos 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.
Julián Chicco 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 22 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.
Asteras have made the call to Fiorentina. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
60 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
$1.4M on the table at Panathinaikos. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Julián Chicco 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Diallo Sanoussi is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
PAOK will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Spyridon Georgiadis has pre-agreed a move to Asteras, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The words a physio says slowly. 68 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Panagiotis Deligiannidis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asteras the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Asteras have done the hard part with Panetolikos, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Everything agreed with Olympiacos, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras 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.
PAOK will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Georgios Papagiannopoulos has pre-agreed a move to Asteras, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Asteras asked and Panathinaikos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Asteras can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Asteras can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Julián Chicco 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.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Jonjoe Kenny was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
In brief
The dugoutKalvin Ketu asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
The terraces28 May 2029
The mood at Asteras has turned into something else
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sotiris Kontouris was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
100 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asteras they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ricardinho wants continental football; whether Asteras can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Panagiotis Deligiannidis 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.
Julián Chicco 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.
Squad21 May 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 words a physio says slowly. 107 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco 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.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 Asteras can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
115 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Asteras 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 Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 May 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sotiris Kontouris signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
123 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 130 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. Asteras 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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Julián Chicco 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Asteras, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ricardinho signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
138 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 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 Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco 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 Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutNikola Šipčić knocks on the manager's door
147 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Asteras lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sotiris Kontouris signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Asteras could ask drops and the wages Panagiotis Deligiannidis can ask rise.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Asteras can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sokratis Dioudis and Asteras agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager's exit leaves Jonjoe Kenny exposed
The dugoutQuique Fornos knocks on the manager's door
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras 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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Julián Chicco 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.
“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; Asteras are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 63 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 Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Asteras can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Julián Chicco 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Asteras will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Evgeniy Yablonskiy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Hernâni’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vasilis Sourlis 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 Asteras 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.
Julián Chicco 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 Vasilis Sourlis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sotiris Kontouris trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nikos Papadopoulos has his answer from Asteras; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 94 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 Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Position 9 on 24 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Julián Chicco 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Asteras can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Kalvin Ketu
The dugoutNikola Šipčić asks for a word with the manager
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
3 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.
10 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Asteras can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Asteras close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 5 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.
“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.
Julián Chicco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasilis Sourlis 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.
Julián Chicco 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: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Paulo Gustavo has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Asteras have done the hard part with Panathinaikos, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Julián Chicco 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 shirt still fits. Vasilis Sourlis is back at Asteras, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Asteras have lost him in all but the paperwork.
7 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.
The deal with Olympiacos 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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 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.
Asteras asked and Los Angeles Football Club said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with AEK 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 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco 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.
Olympiacos left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras 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 Asteras they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Asteras can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Julián Chicco 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Asteras 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Panserraikos scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” River Plate had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 62 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The name of Sotiris Kontouris has come up in conversations Asteras were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Giannis Kotsiras 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Antonis Papakanellos 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 80 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikos Papadopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asteras the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Julián Chicco 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.
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.
“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; Asteras are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras 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 Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Half the programme played, position 7, 16 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“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 Asteras know 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.
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 Asteras can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Asteras heard it as anything else.
Julián Chicco 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 Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout6 Nov 2028
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 Dimitrios Papanikolaou left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikos Papadopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asteras the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Julián Chicco 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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
0‑1 to Atromitos, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout30 Oct 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 Dimitrios Papanikolaou to a room that had heard them before.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sotiris Kontouris’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Asteras needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Asteras can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras 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 Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Dimitrios Papanikolaou after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Kifisia? 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.
Ricardinho wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Ricardinho found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Aris Thessaloniki went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Giannis Kotsiras and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Julián Chicco 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 Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Asteras they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Julián Chicco 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
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 0‑2 Dimitrios Papanikolaou left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
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.
The dugout18 Sep 2028
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.” Dimitrios Papanikolaou, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ricardinho wants continental football; whether Asteras can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Julián Chicco 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.
Asteras ran out of time with Olympiacos. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sokratis Dioudis and Asteras agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout11 Sep 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Dimitrios Papanikolaou to a room that had heard them before.
Two goals and a mark of 8.92 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Asteras will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 21 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal with Olympiacos 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikos Papadopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asteras the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Julián Chicco 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 15 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.
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. Los Angeles Football Club have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The deal with AEK 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.
At 21 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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
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. Portimonense have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Asteras people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Sotiris Kontouris had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
$200.0K settles it between the clubs for Rémy Cabella
Olympiacos have accepted the money. What Asteras do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to AEK; Asteras go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 23 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jonjoe Kenny wants continental football; whether Asteras can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
The offer from Volos NPS for Nikos Papadopoulos 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 23 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.
“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; Asteras are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Asteras lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
“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 Asteras, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
269 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Asteras heard it as anything else.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Antonis Papakanellos is a Asteras player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have shaken hands with AEK; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Asteras have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
At 21 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Nikola Šipčić has improved at 33, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Asteras will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Nikos Papadopoulos reports back to Asteras with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
At 23 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Ricardinho has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Asteras. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Sotiris Kontouris had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Transfer targets17 Jul 2028
$210.0K settles it between the clubs for Rémy Cabella
Olympiacos have accepted the money. What Asteras do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco 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. Diallo Sanoussi 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sotiris Kontouris trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Asteras can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Los Angeles Football Club is saying, and nobody at Asteras is enjoying the guessing.
Giannis Kotsiras 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 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.
A conversation is coming this week. Asteras will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Asteras have done the hard part with AEK, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. Jonjoe Kenny has taken the hint, and Asteras are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Asteras 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 Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Olympiacos 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Julián Bartolo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Asteras have made the call to Los Angeles Football Club. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Yéli Traoré
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Asteras have done the hard part with AEK, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Julián Chicco 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nicholas Gioacchini trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Sotiris Kontouris had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer from Kifisia for Nikos Papadopoulos 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.
The phone has started ringing about Cristo again, and this time the name on the line is Aris Thessaloniki. Asteras are listening politely and promising nothing.
Asteras had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Los Angeles Football Club, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Julián Chicco 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AEK have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Kostas Mavropanos has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The offer from Cobresal for Sotiris Kontouris 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Asteras have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Asteras can pretend not to have heard.
Julián Chicco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 loan enquiry to Los Angeles Football Club: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julián Bartolo 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 not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Asteras are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Julián Bartolo 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Óscar Sánchez has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad22 May 2028
Miki Muñoz 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.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kostas Chrysopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Asteras the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Julián Chicco 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Asteras can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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 Lindsay Rose has written the date down.