Mickaël Malsa 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 paperwork is done: Paulin Puel joins from Levadiakos in a deal worth $51.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Šipčić 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.
Asteras asked and Atromitos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer from Nestos Chrysoupoli for Leandro Frroku 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.
Mickaël Malsa 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.
Asteras offered $38.0K; Levadiakos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Nick Perc 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.
Asteras asked and NK Osijek said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Asteras will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Asteras have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
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.
The offer from Chania for Nikos Grammatikakis 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.
Martín Pino 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.
$310.0K was the most the club would pay and Panionios 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.
Asteras asked and Panionios said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Perc 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Konstantinos Angelakis and Asteras agree another 4 years.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Asteras is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The shirt still fits. Konstantinos Angelakis 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.
Asteras asked and Atromitos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Alexandro Fernández 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.
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.
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 Christos Kountouriotis is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kosta Aleksić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The offer from Panathinaikos for Martín Pino 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Mickaël Malsa 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Nick Perc falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kalamata have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Giannis Bouzoukis has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
A loan enquiry to Aris Thessaloniki: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Martín Pino and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad29 May 2028
Nick Perc falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandro Fernández signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 7 on 34 points, with the season drifting toward the summer. It is the safest place in football and the hardest one to sell a season ticket from.
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 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.
Squad15 May 2028
Nick Perc 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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 Christos Kountouriotis is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Asteras would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“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.
Mickaël Malsa 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 Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Asteras has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Markos Sifneos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Asteras the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Mickaël Malsa 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.
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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Asteras would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandro Fernández signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
17 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.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Nick Perc 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.
Alexandro Fernández 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.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Nikos Papadopoulos has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
16 graduates, from a department now rated 9 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
In brief
SquadNikola Šipčić is training like a man with a point to make
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.
24 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Asteras is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Martín Pino 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Perc 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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 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.
6 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.
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.
41 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.
Mickaël Malsa 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 Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Asteras, another week without a signature from Markos Sifneos.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
48 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.
Mickaël Malsa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Nick Perc 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.
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.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Kiril Despodov plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
“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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Asteras is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
PAS Giannina will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Evan Weir 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.
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.
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.
63 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.
Position 7 on 34 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.
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 Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Asteras, another week without a signature from Kosta Aleksić.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
70 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Alberto Monti after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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.
79 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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Up for the corner, and Tom Louchet delivers — 7.86
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tom Louchet scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Martín Pino 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fotis Kotsonis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
“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.
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.
Martín Pino 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.
6 matches without a win, and then this, against Kalamata. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Nick Perc falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Giannis Tsivelekidis has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Asteras have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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 words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
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.
6 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Nick Perc 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.
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 Nikos Papadopoulos.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 96 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Asteras has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Asteras until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 6.70, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Athens Kallithea have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clock did what Levadiakos would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fotis Kotsonis 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
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Tom Louchet
Squad6 new faces, and Asteras are still learning each other
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 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Levadiakos; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
1 for Éder, marked 7.86, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
Martín Pino 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 fee is $79.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Hellas Syros drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Nick Perc falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Lefteris Tasiouras has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Asteras have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Asteras have done the hard part with Hellas Syros, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Spyros Angelidis 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.
The fee is $500.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Marko drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Martín Pino 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 Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Athens Kallithea have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Panargiakos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Asteras is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Asteras have gone to AEK with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The deal with Marko 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.
Tom Louchet was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Chania have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
0‑3 to AEK, 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.
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.
The clubs have shaken hands with PAOK; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ricardinho was one of the reasons people came, and $3.0M does not replace that by itself.
The fee is $160.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Kavala drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
7.78, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Add another name to the list: IMT have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kosta Aleksić. The answer from Asteras has not changed — yet.
It finished 3‑1, and it was Éder’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Asteras.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Perc 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Taxiarchis Fountas. 1‑0 against Aris Thessaloniki, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Asteras will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Martín Pino 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Perc 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.
8.45. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Alberto Monti on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
0‑4 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.
Martín Pino 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 Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Nikos Papadopoulos knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
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 0‑4 Alberto Monti left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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.
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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Nikos Papadopoulos knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Alberto Monti after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Martín Pino is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Tom Louchet 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 Nick Perc 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.
Martín Pino 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Nick Perc 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.
Marked 8.03 — 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.
Level with 92 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Asteras had all but put away. Kalamata will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Nikos Papadopoulos knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Alberto Monti after the 3‑3 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Martín Pino 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.
Something was said to Kosta Aleksić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Kalamata next, and one man in the Asteras dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Asteras would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
2 goals in 9 games at Athens Kallithea — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Asteras updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Evangelos Andreou. 3‑2 against Volos NPS, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
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 dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Alberto Monti kept it short after the 3‑2 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Two goals and a mark of 7.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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.
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.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Asteras and Iraklis, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nick Perc was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 3‑4 defeat, delivered by Alberto Monti to a room that had heard them before.
Martín Pino 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 6.99 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Chances created: 11. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Alberto Monti after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
0‑3 to PAOK, 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.
Martín Pino 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Nick Perc falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
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 0‑3 Alberto Monti left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Taxiarchis Fountas’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.
Tom Louchet 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Perc is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a 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.
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.
PAOK next, and one man in the Asteras dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Martín Pino signs something — a contract at Asteras or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nick Perc has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Giannis Giakoumakis obliged against Kampaniakos. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Asteras.
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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.22 — 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.
8.01. 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Giannis Kotsiras's mistake
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ferni has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
Martín Pino 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 8.23. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Asteras.
Squad27 Sep 2027
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Alberto Monti after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Asteras will try again when the window opens; Chania may not be selling by then.
Marked 8.29. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Asteras.
Squad20 Sep 2027
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.
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.
7.94, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
2 games now in a shape the manager was not using a month ago. Changing a formation is easy and keeping one is not, which is why the second of those is the part that tells you something.
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 deal with AEL Larisa 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Asteras close the window on a squad of their own making
15 in and 27 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.
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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Asteras will try again when the window opens; Kavala may not be selling by then.
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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Panagiotis Deligiannidis has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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.
Asteras had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at PAOK, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Martín Pino 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 offer went to Chania this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Boardroom30 Aug 2027
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Asteras
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Asteras asked and Egaleo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The 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 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.
Asteras asked and AEK said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“It 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.
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.
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 Panagiotis Deligiannidis has written the date down.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Asteras, another week without a signature from Kosta Aleksić.
The fee is $790.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Panetolikos drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panionios have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Martín Pino and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Aug 2027
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.
“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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“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.
“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 Panetolikos 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Spartak Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Panetolikos have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Asteras, another week without a signature from Taxiarchis Fountas.
In brief
The dugoutKalvin Ketu knocks on the manager’s door
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.
Asteras had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at PAOK, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Anagennisi Karditsa have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Martín Pino is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Hagan Frimpong is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Asteras than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Marko have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Panetolikos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Martín Pino 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.
Asteras have made the call to Spartak Moscow. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Asteras had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at OFI, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Asteras asked and OFI said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$1.0M was the most the club would pay and Panetolikos 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $300.4K — a club that wants Giorgos Kyriopoulos enough to be asked twice.
The shirt still fits. Taxiarchis Fountas 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.
The offer went to Panathinaikos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
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.
He is going to OFI, the club has $4.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The offer went to Panetolikos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
Athens Kallithea paid $84.0K and Asteras took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Where he used to play does most of his talking for him at Asteras. The room defers to it, the kids study it, and the only thing that can puncture it is a bad month.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Asteras would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The offer went to OFI this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $83.4K — a club that wants Panagiotis Panagiotidis enough to be asked twice.
The fee is $450.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Niki Volos drove a hard bargain; time will say who won 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 offer went to Iraklis this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Asteras asked and Anagennisi Karditsa 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 name of Giannis Bouzoukis has come up in conversations Asteras were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Martín Pino 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 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.
Asteras asked and Iraklis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The 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.
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.
Asteras had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at OFI, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Nikos Grammatikakis is a Asteras player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
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.
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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Levadiakos have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kalvin Ketu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The chase for Nick Perc ended with $3.0M changing hands and Egaleo out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The deal with Volos NPS 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.
Asteras asked and OFI said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
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.
Asteras offered $7.0K; AEK said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The terraces14 Jun 2027
Asteras spend $3.0M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $3.0M for Nick Perc, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
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.
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 deal with Egaleo 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.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Egaleo have kept their man, and Asteras go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Franco Orozco and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some 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.
$200.0K was the most the club would pay and Olympiacos 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giannis Bouzoukis 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 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.
Franco Orozco 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giannis Bouzoukis 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 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.
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.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Asteras and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Asteras will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Kalvin Ketu’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
In brief
Loan watchAlberto Simoni watches his loan from the bench
Franco Orozco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan 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.
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.
“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.
Martín Pino 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kalvin Ketu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“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.
Franco Orozco 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.
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.
Squad3 May 2027
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.
The dugout3 May 2027
Martín Pino is playing like a man with something to prove
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. Martín Pino is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
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.
Martín Pino and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at 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 Giannis Bouzoukis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Franco Orozco 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.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
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.
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.
“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.
Franco Orozco 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.
“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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan 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.
Everybody at Asteras saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Theodoros Stafylidis leaves with $31.4K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
Something was said to Giannis Kotsiras and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. Martín Pino has taken the hint, and Asteras are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Antonis Papakanellos is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Bruno Pérez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Franco Orozco 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nair Tiknizyan 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Asteras told Nair Tiknizyan something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Theodoros Stafylidis could afford to be generous.
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 dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Theodoros Stafylidis left the room before anybody could ask which.
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Asteras lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Bruno Pérez's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Two goals and a mark of 9.22 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Theodoros Stafylidis on a 4‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
6 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.
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 Nair Tiknizyan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Theodoros Stafylidis to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
5 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.
Franco Orozco 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Asteras told Éder something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Theodoros Stafylidis was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Asteras dressing room was either.
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.
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.
“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.
Franco Orozco 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leandro Frroku was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
Julián Bartolo has gone, the accounts have $2.0M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Asteras close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 8 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Santiago Rodallega has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
“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 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.
0‑3 against Olympiacos, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“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.
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 footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jorge Moreno has, at Asteras, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Asteras asked and Cortulua said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The 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. Franz Brorsson scored, was marked 7.50, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Panathinaikos; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Martín Pino 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.
Asteras asked and Niki Volos 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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Franz Brorsson had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chania waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Asteras is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
He is going to AEK, the club has $2.4M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Éder scored, was marked 7.98, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Franco Orozco 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.
Asteras asked and SuperSport United 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Asteras have had the benefit of it.
The phone has started ringing about Issiaga Sylla again, and this time the name on the line is Olympiacos. Asteras are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicholas Gioacchini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Asteras this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Minute 90, against Volos NPS, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Julián Bartolo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Nicholas Gioacchini in the middle of it, and AEL Larisa unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
The new man at Asteras has worked with Éder before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Theodoros Stafylidis could afford to be generous.
Squad21 Dec 2026
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.
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.
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Martín Pino was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.49. 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.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicholas Gioacchini 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 new man at Asteras has worked with Éder before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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 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.
12 combined actions and 6.98. 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicholas Gioacchini 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 new man at Asteras has worked with Éder before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Issiaga Sylla is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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 new man at Asteras has worked with Éder before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicholas Gioacchini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikos Kaltsas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ricardinho trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Atromitos next, and one man in the Asteras dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Theodoros Stafylidis after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
SquadMiki Muñoz falls out with a teammate over standards
21 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.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Miller Mareco is living that version at Asteras, and it tends to show in the first month.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
2 behind and going nowhere, until Junior Mendieta decided otherwise. Levadiakos had done the hard part and then watched it come apart, and the noise at the final whistle was the sort a ground keeps.
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.
7.90, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.83 beside his name.
97 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.66 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Martín Pino 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.
Everybody at Asteras saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
It needed Martín Pino to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Olympiacos, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Theodoros Stafylidis was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Asteras dressing room was either.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Julián Bartolo
The dugoutKalvin Ketu asks for a word with the manager
105 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.
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.
“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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Nikos Papadopoulos’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 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. 112 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.
0‑3 to Panathinaikos, 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.
6 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.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicholas Gioacchini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
121 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.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Antonis Papakanellos is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-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.
128 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Giannis Bouzoukis scored, was marked 7.18, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Theodoros Stafylidis after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Nikola Šipčić 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 136 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 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Asteras training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicholas Gioacchini 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Theodoros Stafylidis left the room before anybody could ask which.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
143 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.
“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 offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 14 signed and 9 gone
That is the business done at Asteras until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Franz Brorsson 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 has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Julián Bartolo’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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Asteras know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The phone has started ringing about Nikola Šipčić again, and this time the name on the line is PAOK. Asteras are listening politely and promising nothing.
Asteras asked and Levadiakos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$150.0K was the most the club would pay and OFI 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.
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.
Martín Pino 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Stavros Papanikolaou is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The offer from Dinamo Minsk for Evgeniy Yablonskiy 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.
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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $155.8K — a club that wants Krešimir Krizmanić enough to be asked twice.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alberto Simoni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
AEL Larisa next, and one man in the Asteras dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Asteras has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The offer from OFI for Nicholas Gioacchini 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Martín Pino has just signed for Asteras, and for once the answer mattered.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Asteras have paid $920.0K for Martín Pino, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
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.
The offer went to Levadiakos this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.2M — a club that wants Giorgos Kornezos enough to be asked twice.
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.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Éder has, at Asteras, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Stade de Reims is saying, and nobody at Asteras is enjoying the guessing.
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 shirt still fits. Éder 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alberto Simoni was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alexandros Papagiannopoulos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lazaros Androutsos has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.