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. Egaleo will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo 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 Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
The dugoutHugo Constant knocks on the manager's door
Position 3, 30 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I have 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 Egaleo know it.
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.
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.
Nobody at Egaleo 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ilias Karargyris will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Thanasis Karamanis 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 Dimitris Goutas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Egaleo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Egaleo know it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo 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 Charis Tsingaras was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Félix Nzouango Bikien trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitris Goutas 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; Egaleo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Egaleo, another week without a signature from Revaz Chiteishvili.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Thanasis Karamanis 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 Charis Tsingaras was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andreas Athanasakopoulos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Egaleo than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo 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 Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Egaleo now.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Miguel Luís 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Davit Hakobyan has his answer from Egaleo; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Egaleo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutÁlex Camacho knocks on the manager’s door
The dugoutGiorgos Kosteas has become a man the manager trusts
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad13 Mar 2028
11 new faces, and Egaleo are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Davit Hakobyan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Thanasis Karamanis 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 Álex Camacho 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 Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Egaleo, another week without a signature from Alfie Chang.
Nobody at Egaleo 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Egaleo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo 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 Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Egaleo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutRida Zouhir knocks on the manager’s door
Position 3, 30 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Charis Tsingaras was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Egaleo are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Thibault Corbaz is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Nobody at Egaleo 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Nick Perc reports back to Egaleo with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ilias Karargyris will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Álex Camacho 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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Egaleo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Dimitris Goutas arrives at 33 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Panathinaikos moved on, Alfie Chang reports back to Egaleo, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Egaleo, and 6 appearances in 23 say he has earned the hearing.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Charis Tsingaras is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Jegors Olijars has moved up it.
In brief
The dugoutTchow has become a man the manager trusts
The offer from Panathinaikos for Nick Perc was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Egaleo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Egaleo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Something was said to Álex Camacho and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Davit Hakobyan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.93 for the rest of it.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Marked 8.53 — 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.
“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 Egaleo know it.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Vasileios Torosidis on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hellas Syros waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Thanasis Karamanis was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras 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; Egaleo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Asteras have kept their man, and Egaleo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
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. Egaleo will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Egaleo asked and PAOK 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 watch every Egaleo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Niki Volos runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Position 3, 24 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Edson González did not need any: 8.24, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Edson González 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Egaleo will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Thanasis Karamanis and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras 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.
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.
The dugout20 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 0‑1 Vasileios Torosidis left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo 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 Egaleo know it.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe 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 Egaleo, another week without a signature from Alfie Chang.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
“I watch every Egaleo game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pafos runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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.
The dugout6 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 0‑1 Vasileios Torosidis left the room before anybody could ask which.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Apostolos Tsilingiris is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Up for the corner, and Alfie Chang delivers — 7.75
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Alfie Chang scored, was marked 7.75, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis 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 Charis Tsingaras was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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 run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 10 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
0‑2 to Ilioupoli, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe 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.
7 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vasileios Torosidis after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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 Egaleo 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 happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“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; Egaleo are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Egaleo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Egaleo has been clear about where Maxime Pélican stands, which is more than many ever get.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Ilioupoli in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Thanasis Karamanis 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 Charis Tsingaras 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 Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Half the programme played, position 2, 17 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“I 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 Egaleo will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Thanasis Karamanis and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a 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.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
7.80, 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Charis Tsingaras was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo 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 happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Miguel Luís was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Egaleo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Angjelo Kola has just signed for Egaleo, and for once the answer mattered.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álex Camacho 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.
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tchow scored, was marked 7.82, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Egaleo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Up for the corner, and Miguel Luís delivers — 7.62
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Miguel Luís scored, was marked 7.62, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 68 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giorgos Xenitidis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo 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 Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Charis Tsingaras is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Egaleo know it.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Miguel Luís
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Aleksandr Šapovalov reports back to Egaleo with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 18 gone
That is the business done at Egaleo 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.
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I have 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 Egaleo know it.
89 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
The name of Aleksandr Šapovalov has come up in conversations Egaleo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pavlos Karvounis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Egaleo have done the hard part with Deportivo Riestra, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
96 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
A loan enquiry to Deportivo Riestra: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
A loan enquiry to Union Magdalena: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
104 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Makedonikos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Deportivo Riestra have kept their man, and Egaleo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
112 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo 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 Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Huracán keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Thanasis Karamanis 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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. 121 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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pavlos Karvounis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Tobi Alagbe 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 Charis Tsingaras was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
129 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Egaleo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo 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 Egaleo 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 Miguel Luís 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. Karlovac 1919 have kept their man, and Egaleo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Nahuel Maldonado is in the works
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Marko waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Thanasis Karamanis 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 Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Nobody at Egaleo 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Luís 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. Temperley have kept their man, and Egaleo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Egaleo know it.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Egaleo asked and All Boys said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
5 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vasilis Tsimopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe 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. Huracán have kept their man, and Egaleo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Egaleo know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The offer from Iraklis for Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo 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 Pavlos Karvounis 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 Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Olympiacos is saying, and nobody at Egaleo is enjoying the guessing.
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Niki Volos paid $160.0K and Egaleo took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Position 8 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo 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 Egaleo 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 Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Egaleo have made the call to Panetolikos. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Egaleo than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Tobi Alagbe 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 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 Giorgos Kosteas is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Egaleo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Egaleo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Egaleo would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Egaleo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Odysseas Spyridis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Moussa Djénépo 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 Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Egaleo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Spyros Kostopoulos is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lucas Shlimon has written the date down.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dimitris Goumas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Tobi Alagbe 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxime Pélican was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Egaleo, another week without a signature from Alfie Chang.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Moussa Djénépo 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.
Or Mesika is 20, and Egaleo have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Egaleo are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Xenitidis 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo 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 Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
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.
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 Spyros Kostopoulos is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Egaleo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Spyros Kostopoulos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vasilis Tsimopoulos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Odysseas Spyridis has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutLucas Shlimon knocks on the manager’s door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Moussa Djénépo 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zean Dalügge trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Lucas Shlimon has written the date down.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Odysseas Spyridis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Egaleo would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
In brief
The dugoutZean Dalügge knocks on the manager’s door
Position 8 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe 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 Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Egaleo know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Egaleo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Egaleo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Moussa Djénépo 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Egaleo, another week without a signature from Alfie Chang.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Egaleo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Odysseas Spyridis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Aleksandr Šapovalov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mandovani is living that version at Egaleo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every 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.
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.
Position 8 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Egaleo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Tobi Alagbe 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 Maxime Pélican was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Egaleo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Egaleo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Egaleo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marcelo Henrique has just signed for Egaleo, and for once the answer mattered.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcelo Henrique commits to Egaleo for another 4 years.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgos Xenitidis 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.
Nobody at Egaleo 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Egaleo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Egaleo 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.
Moussa Djénépo 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Egaleo asked and Makedonikos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: Panargiakos have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Odysseas Spyridis. The answer from Egaleo has not changed — yet.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Egaleo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivane Chegra will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Egaleo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo 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. Patronato have kept their man, and Egaleo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Pélican 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.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 19 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Egaleo asked and Chernomorets 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. Egaleo have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Panetolikos, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Egaleo 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Aleksandr Šapovalov had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Marko were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aleksandr Šapovalov provided it, and the 8.71 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Egaleo have done the hard part with AEK, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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 Egaleo know 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 Egaleo 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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 Nikos Grammatikakis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Egaleo pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Egaleo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Pélican is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I 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 Egaleo will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It needed Aleksandr Šapovalov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Panionios, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Vasileios Torosidis was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Egaleo dressing room was either.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Egaleo who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Zean Dalügge 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.
Nobody at Egaleo is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Lucas Gaona did not need any: 8.57, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tobi Alagbe 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.
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.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Egaleo know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Vasileios Torosidis after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Pélican 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.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ulrich N'Nomo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Egaleo needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Dimitris Goumas has his answer from Egaleo; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Nobody at Egaleo 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Kostas Tabas a promise
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.63, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Lucas Gaona, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.75
A mark of 8.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Aleksandr Šapovalov 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 Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo 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.
“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 Egaleo will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
56 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Egaleo can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Félix Nzouango Bikien 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.” Vasileios Torosidis after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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 Egaleo 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 Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Egaleo told Christos Belevonis something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
18 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxime Pélican was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 79 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have 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 Egaleo know 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 Egaleo 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.
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 dugout5 Oct 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 0‑3 Vasileios Torosidis left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
SquadMaxime Pélican falls out with a teammate over standards
4 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
86 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Egaleo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Aleksandr Šapovalov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
Tobi Alagbe 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hugo Constant, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Pélican 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.” Vasileios Torosidis after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikos Grammatikakis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo 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 Egaleo can pretend not to have heard.
Tobi Alagbe and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Sep 2026
18 new faces, and Egaleo are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Shlimon 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 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Egaleo 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.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Egaleo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Egaleo know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
117 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Aleksandr Šapovalov 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aleksandr Šapovalov. 1‑0 against Ilioupoli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Egaleo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Egaleo, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Temperley 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.
Tobi Alagbe 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.
Egaleo asked and Volos NPS said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Odysseas Spyridis 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 doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Egaleo know which stage they are at.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Egaleo has been clear about where Angelos Zioulis stands, which is more than many ever get.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Ilioupoli in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
Egaleo asked and Gimnasia y Esgrima said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Egaleo know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Odysseas Spyridis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Egaleo has been clear about where Dimitris Oungialidis stands, which is more than many ever get.
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 Egaleo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Bryan Nouvier is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Egaleo have done the hard part with OFI, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Egaleo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Panetolikos, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Zean Dalügge 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 Tobi Alagbe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Egaleo asked and Olympiacos 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Nikos Torosidis 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Michalis Manolas has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Andreas Vlachodimos 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.
Zean Dalügge and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Egaleo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobi Alagbe is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Egaleo know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Still no offer on the table, and Nick Perc’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Egaleo have made the call to Panetolikos. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.