Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matteo Lorenzi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sliema Wanderers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Teddy Teuma 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 Murilo Henrique was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nicholas Strickland commits to Sliema Wanderers for another 3 years.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Henry Bonello
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Henry Bonello has come out of that comparison in the side, and Sliema Wanderers have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 Valletta for Vito Plut 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 Sliema Wanderers can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Sliema Wanderers 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Teddy Teuma 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.
Harrison Chamberlain 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sliema Wanderers can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
The dugoutTeddy Teuma has become a man the manager trusts
“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.
Position 2 on 46 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sliema Wanderers 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 Sliema Wanderers can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jake Mangion will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sliema Wanderers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teddy Teuma 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.
4‑0, and Nikos Karelis took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Sliema Wanderers tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A brace, and Nikos Karelis takes the afternoon — 9.68
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikos Karelis provided it, and the 9.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer from Koper for Nikos Karelis 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 name of Uroš Đuranović has come up in conversations Sliema Wanderers were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Teddy Teuma 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 had been thinking. Murilo Henrique 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sliema Wanderers have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 11 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teddy Teuma 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.
Murilo Henrique 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.
Position 2, 40 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.
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. Sliema Wanderers will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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 Sliema Wanderers, and it is not being withdrawn.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Julian Bugeja is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Murilo Henrique 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.
A brace, and Nikos Karelis takes the afternoon — 9.56
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikos Karelis provided it, and the 9.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.51 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
14 goals and a season average of 7.32. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match19 Dec 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Sliema Wanderers. 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 Teddy Teuma was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mohamed Awad obliged against Floriana. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Sliema Wanderers.
5 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Jake Mangion, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Teddy Teuma 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.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.49, and 2 involvements.
At 17 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.
Uroš Đuranović wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Uroš Đuranović found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Gzira United went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Adam Magri Overend and Sliema Wanderers agree another 3 years.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Murilo Henrique was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Hamrun Spartans had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Sliema Wanderers did not stop to explain themselves.
A 1‑0 win over Hamrun Spartans, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
“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 Sliema Wanderers, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Gilbert Buttigieg on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
SquadWords at Sliema Wanderers training over how hard people work
Teddy Teuma 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 had been thinking. Mohamed Awad 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 afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Teddy Teuma 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 Murilo Henrique was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Something was said to Murilo Henrique and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Tarxien Rainbows will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Sliema Wanderers were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Position 2, 20 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sliema Wanderers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Half the programme played, position 2, 20 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Gilbert Buttigieg on a 4‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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 an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.06 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A 2‑1 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.
Harrison Chamberlain 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.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
“I did not go to Hamrun Spartans to sit and watch. I want to come back to Sliema Wanderers and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
The dugout2 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.” Gilbert Buttigieg, on a 2‑1 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.
Teddy Teuma 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Sliema Wanderers were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
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 dugout26 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 0‑2 Gilbert Buttigieg left the room before anybody could ask which.
Harrison Chamberlain is 20, and Sliema Wanderers 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.23 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Murilo Henrique 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Gilbert Buttigieg could afford to be generous.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Nikos Karelis was the best thing in any of them.
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.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sliema Wanderers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 22 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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Gilbert Buttigieg after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
13 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Birkirkara? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.85 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
“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 Sliema Wanderers, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
He is 17 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.
Teddy Teuma 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gilbert Buttigieg after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Awad was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Teddy Teuma 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Patrick 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. Lawrence Cassar is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Frank Sultana 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. Robert Mifsud 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Murilo Henrique was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Nikos Karelis has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Steve Pisani’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sliema Wanderers needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sliema Wanderers know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Sliema Wanderers 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.
Naxxar Lions will want this one forgotten quickly: 7‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Sliema Wanderers were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 10.00 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 12 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Sliema Wanderers 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Sliema Wanderers and Naxxar Lions, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
At 16 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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sliema Wanderers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Uroš Đuranović provided it, and the 9.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Matteo Azzopardi 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Johann Cassar and Sliema Wanderers agree another 3 years.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sliema Wanderers lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Teddy Teuma 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 squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Henry Bonello’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sliema Wanderers needing him to play as if none of it matters.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sliema Wanderers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Sliema Wanderers offered $8.0K; Valletta said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Add another name to the list: Marsaxlokk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luke Montebello. The answer from Sliema Wanderers has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teddy Teuma 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sliema Wanderers know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Jake Mangion has his answer from Sliema Wanderers; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Teddy Teuma 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Oliver Agius 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. Alan Deguara 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Aaron Schembri is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jean Borg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Teddy Teuma and Sliema Wanderers agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 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.