Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Gamarra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Kenan Dervišagić is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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 Osborn Maluleke has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Floriana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Leo Young arrives at Floriana with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“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 The request is on a desk at Floriana, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Floriana 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.
Kenan Dervišagić 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
Jakob Cioffi returns from a loan that gave him nothing
0 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Furdjel Narsingh trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 38. 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 offer from Dinamo Tbilisi for Robert Murić 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.
Kenan Dervišagić 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 first defeat in 6 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Birkirkara; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 90. Birkirkara had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Floriana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match16 Jan 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Floriana. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Gamarra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Floriana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The name of Mustapha Jah has come up in conversations Floriana were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“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; Floriana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Fede Varela’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Floriana.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Paul Mbong was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Mattia Veselji
47 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Floriana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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. Floriana will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Successful dribbles: 41. 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.
Marsaxlokk will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Floriana were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Floriana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Kenan Dervišagić 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Floriana will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Kauan scored, was marked 7.96, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Kauan 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Floriana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gonzalo Gamarra 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 2‑0 win over Gzira United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Paul Mbong was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Matthew Zammit on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Sliema Wanderers go through and Floriana go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“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 Floriana, and 0 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Kenan Dervišagić
“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 Floriana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Paul Mbong scored in the 87th minute, Naxxar Lions had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Floriana took the lot.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
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.
“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 Floriana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kenan Dervišagić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Valletta defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Floriana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Robert Murić. 1‑0 against Tarxien Rainbows, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad23 Nov 2026
8 new faces, and Floriana 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Matthew Zammit kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Two goals and a mark of 8.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luciano Van Heerden has just signed for Floriana, and for once the answer mattered.
A 2‑0 win over Zabbar St. Patrick, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match14 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Floriana. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Floriana, and it is not being withdrawn.
25 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Thabang Molefe has, at Floriana, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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 Floriana know it.
Kenan Dervišagić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Hibernians the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Floriana will enjoy reviewing.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Floriana 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Floriana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Sliema Wanderers made Floriana work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Paul Mbong was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.35. 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Fede Varela was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. 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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Hibernians next, and one man in the Floriana dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
Sliema Wanderers next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Matthew Zammit after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Mosta? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sliema Wanderers in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kenan Dervišagić signs something — a contract at Floriana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Kenan Dervišagić 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“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 Floriana, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kenan Dervišagić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Gzira United scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Floriana 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 Gonzalo Gamarra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Robert Murić. 2‑0 against Hamrun Spartans, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Robert Murić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Matthew Zammit, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Kenan Dervišagić has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Naxxar Lions will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Floriana were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Floriana and Naxxar Lions, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Carlo Zammit Lonardelli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Floriana know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“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 Floriana, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Two goals and a mark of 9.17 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Kenan Dervišagić 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Mustapha Jah was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.56. 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kenan Dervišagić provided it, and the 9.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Mustapha Jah takes the afternoon — 9.46
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mustapha Jah provided it, and the 9.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Gonzalo Gamarra 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Floriana and Zabbar St. Patrick, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He is 22 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mustapha Jah had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Gamarra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Naxxar Lions have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Robert Murić was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Floriana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Floriana asked and Crewe Alexandra 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jean Bugeja 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Patrick Sultana is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Robert Murić 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Carlo Zammit Lonardelli trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.