There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Panathinaikos support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Facundo Pellistri 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 Panathinaikos game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Asteras runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Renato Sanches will want back
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panathinaikos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sotiris Kontouris is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.63, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Iñaki Peña falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Andrews Tetteh provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.55 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Facundo Pellistri 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Panathinaikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iñaki Peña 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Anass Zaroury was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.23. 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Panathinaikos heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panathinaikos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Panathinaikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renato Sanches 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.69 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panathinaikos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Panathinaikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iñaki Peña 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cyriel Dessers, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Panathinaikos 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.
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The offer from Kifisia for Sotiris Kontouris 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.
Andrews Tetteh 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Iñaki Peña falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is 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 offer from Veres for Triantafyllos Tsapras 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Panathinaikos 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 Panathinaikos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Panathinaikos
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Efthymios Georgiadis is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Spyridon Papanikolaou 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 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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Panathinaikos 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 Panathinaikos, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panathinaikos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Iñaki Peña 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.
Lucas Menossi 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Facundo Pellistri 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.
Words at Panathinaikos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iñaki Peña 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Panathinaikos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Panathinaikos hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Facundo Pellistri 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.
Atromitos paid $710.0K and Panathinaikos took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The name of Pedro Chirivella has come up in conversations Panathinaikos were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Panathinaikos 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.