2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Out, 1‑1 to Petrolul Ploiești, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows 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 Hermannstadt can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christ Afalna 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.
Dennis Politic and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Thiam 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 Alexandru Oroian trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” László Kleinheisler and Hermannstadt agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Thiam 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Kevin Ciubotaru has come out of that comparison in the side, and Hermannstadt have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Hermannstadt, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Marko Gjorgjievski and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Hermannstadt are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Christ Afalna 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.
Position 11, 15 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hermannstadt can pretend not to have heard.
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.
David Lazar 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 Mamadou Thiam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A 3‑1 win over CFR Cluj, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Sergiu Man, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
In brief
Looking aheadA test against the best for Hermannstadt
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hermannstadt lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
David Lazar 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 Christ Afalna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mamadou Thiam’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Hermannstadt needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hermannstadt know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Hermannstadt 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Hermannstadt have no good answer.
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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christ Afalna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hermannstadt lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 14 and 8 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.
1 for Andreas Karo, marked 7.82, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
1 for Roan Wilson, marked 7.89, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mamadou Thiam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Roan Wilson’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Hermannstadt.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Mamadou Thiam
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutMamadou Thiam knocks on the manager’s door
Successful dribbles: 40. 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.
“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 Hermannstadt, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mamadou Thiam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hermannstadt this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
11 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
László Kleinheisler and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. CSM Reșița tried to reorganise, Hermannstadt did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Christ Afalna 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.
Everybody at Hermannstadt saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Marko Gjorgjievski 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Mamadou Thiam 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 happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 38 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hermannstadt can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Petrolul Ploiești next, and one man in the Hermannstadt dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Hermannstadt know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Ionuţ Stoica
10Edition
The Hermannstadt Sentinel
5 Oct 2026
From our football correspondentUneasy
The terraces5 Oct 2026
Supporters organise against the Hermannstadt board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Position 14 and 4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hermannstadt this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Hermannstadt are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Thiam 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.
David Lazar 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 Christ Afalna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
11 new faces, and Hermannstadt 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sergiu Man after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
David Lazar and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mamadou Thiam 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.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Sergiu Man to a room that had heard them before.
FC Argeș next, and one man in the Hermannstadt dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Hermannstadt would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Successful dribbles: 34. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and Kalifa Kujabi delivers — 7.28
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Kalifa Kujabi scored, was marked 7.28, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mamadou Thiam 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.
Minute 87, against Botosani, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Hermannstadt will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
That is the business done at Hermannstadt 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.
CSC Dumbrăvița wanted more than $320.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ivan Čurković has just signed for Hermannstadt, and for once the answer mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and Hermannstadt go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Dennis Politic 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 clock did what Politehnica Iași would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christ Afalna is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Hermannstadt are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
He is 20, and nobody at Hermannstadt signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The clubs have shaken hands with Politehnica Iași; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hermannstadt 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.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Mamadou Thiam from FCSB for $1.9M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ludogorets have kept their man, and Hermannstadt go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mamadou Thiam was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
SquadHermannstadt are still strangers to each other
4Edition
The Hermannstadt Sentinel
24 Aug 2026
From our football correspondentUneasy
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$1.9M settles it between the clubs for Mamadou Thiam
FCSB have accepted the money. What Hermannstadt do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“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 Hermannstadt, and it is not being withdrawn.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $410.0K has been paid because László Kleinheisler is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hermannstadt 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. Levski have kept their man, and Hermannstadt go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christ Afalna is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It was not 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.
Dragoş Albu has gone, the accounts have $810.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Hermannstadt had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Juventus, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Hermannstadt have gone to FK Csíkszereda with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Gloria Bistrița paid $810.0K and Hermannstadt took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
The offer went to Aris Thessaloniki this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FCSB have kept their man, and Hermannstadt go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marko Gjorgjievski and Hermannstadt agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
David Lazar 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Florin Mihaila 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Stefan Cicaldau 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.
0‑3 to Farul Constanța, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
$1.3M on the table at Dinamo Bucharest. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hermannstadt this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Kevin Ciubotaru has come up in conversations Hermannstadt were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to David Lazar, and the manager let it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Hermannstadt training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christ Afalna 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.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Hermannstadt dressing room in a hurry
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.
In brief
Squad8 new faces, and Hermannstadt are still learning each other