“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nea Salamis can pretend not to have heard.
Nea Salamis had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Club Brugge, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Luan Viana 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 Christos Giousis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nea Salamis asked and Cortulua said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
15 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $30.0K — a club that wants Lenos Sofroniou enough to be asked twice.
Wallace 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.
Nea Salamis asked and PAEEK said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Nea Salamis will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Volos NPS is saying, and nobody at Nea Salamis is enjoying the guessing.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Petros Kolias 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. Antonis Pittas 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Wallace has just signed for Nea Salamis, and for once the answer mattered.
The shirt still fits. Giorgos Pontikos is back at Nea Salamis, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and José Artiles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The phone has started ringing about Alexandros Michail again, and this time the name on the line is ASIL Lysi. Nea Salamis are listening politely and promising nothing.