“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 The request is on a desk at Tarxien Rainbows, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout21 Dec 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 0‑1 Martin Micallef left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Marcus Grima 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marko Musulin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 The request is on a desk at Tarxien Rainbows, and it is not being withdrawn.
Andreas Vella 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 Tarxien Rainbows can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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 Tarxien Rainbows know it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Connor Cook and Tarxien Rainbows agree another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Kwasi Donsu 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 92, against Hibernians, 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.
Nobody at Tarxien Rainbows 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Tarxien Rainbows has to find a result from somewhere.
“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; Tarxien Rainbows are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marko Musulin 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.
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.
Gzira United go through and Tarxien Rainbows go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Wesley will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Tarxien Rainbows escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 7.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. T.J. Tahid did not need any: 7.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
7.46, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tarxien Rainbows this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Kwasi Donsu 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Tarxien Rainbows, another week without a signature from T.J. Tahid.
Nobody at Tarxien Rainbows 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mosta 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 Kwasi Donsu signs something — a contract at Tarxien Rainbows or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Tarxien Rainbows will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. T.J. Tahid has just signed for Tarxien Rainbows, and for once the answer mattered.
Wesley 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.
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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.84, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Grima 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Marko Musulin 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 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kwasi Donsu. 1‑0 against Gzira United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Martin Micallef could afford to be generous.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wesley trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Tarxien Rainbows, and it is not being withdrawn.
Position 10 and 6 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.
Andreas Vella 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. Kwasi Donsu 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 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 view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Martin Micallef chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Hamrun Spartans? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
A brace, and Marko Musulin takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marko Musulin provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Kwasi Donsu 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.
Abubakar Nasir 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 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 Tarxien Rainbows know it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Marko Musulin 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 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Tarxien Rainbows have gone and got theirs early.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Tarxien Rainbows would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Tarxien Rainbows have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Tarxien Rainbows scored in the 103th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Miguel D'Alessandro scored, was marked 7.56, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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 Tarxien Rainbows know it.
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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tarxien Rainbows can pretend not to have heard.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Tarxien Rainbows can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
50 goals for this club, and somewhere in the stand there is a person who can still tell you where they were for most of them.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Marcus Grima 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 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tarxien Rainbows this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Martin Micallef after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Tarxien Rainbows will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Marko Musulin 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.
Tarxien Rainbows asked and Remo Stars said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kwasi Donsu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 18, and nobody at Tarxien Rainbows signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The dugout14 Sep 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.” Martin Micallef kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutMarko Musulin knocks on the manager’s door
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Pieta Hotspurs had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Tarxien Rainbows 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Miguel Spiteri reports back to Tarxien Rainbows with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mosta have kept their man, and Tarxien Rainbows go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kwasi Donsu 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tarxien Rainbows, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Floriana.
2‑5 against Hibernians, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pieta Hotspurs waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tarxien Rainbows is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.90, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Tarxien Rainbows and Hibernians in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
“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 Tarxien Rainbows, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kwasi Donsu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Tarxien Rainbows are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hibernians in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The deal with Valletta is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tarxien Rainbows this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Tarxien Rainbows asked and Swieqi United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kennedy Balotelli and Tarxien Rainbows agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Grima 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 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kennedy Balotelli has, at Tarxien Rainbows, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mosta have kept their man, and Tarxien Rainbows go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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; Tarxien Rainbows are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Kennedy Balotelli is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrick Schmidt and Tarxien Rainbows agree another 4 years.
“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; Tarxien Rainbows are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Tarxien Rainbows asked and Plateau United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kwasi Donsu 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.