From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Oct 2026
Ilias Chatzitheodoridis 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.87, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ilias Chatzitheodoridis, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Marios Siabanis has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Volos NPS 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
The chances came and went for Joca
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Market12 Oct 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matías González signs something — a contract at Volos NPS or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Juanpi runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
64 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Market5 Oct 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volos NPS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
430% of the income goes out in wages at Volos NPS
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Carles Soria
“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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.44, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match3 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Levadiakos leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
33 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Diamantis Legisi could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.55
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.55, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Vladimir Ignatenko, 20, 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 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matías González wants continental football; whether Volos NPS can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Lazaros Lamprou 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 terraces28 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Vladimir Ignatenko has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volos NPS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Volos NPS
7 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.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
“I watch every Volos NPS game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at MSK Zilina runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 2-goal lead gone for Volos NPS
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Panserraikos kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Volos NPS will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Match12 Sep 2026
Jan Hurtado scored, and precious little else went right: 3‑4 to Panserraikos, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Hamza Mendyl gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Maximiliano Comba 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Joca was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Marios Siabanis's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Market14 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matías González signs something — a contract at Volos NPS or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 27. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 25, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Matías González at his very best
Marked 9.51. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Volos NPS.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 21, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
330% of the income goes out in wages at Volos NPS
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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Three points for Volos NPS, 1‑0 the final word against Asteras in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Volos NPS training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Comba 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Klearchos Vainopoulos is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
1 academy players handed senior numbers at Volos NPS
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Núrio 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jan Hurtado gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market31 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Georgios 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Volos NPS can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volos NPS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Volos NPS training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Comba 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Volos NPS 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Volos NPS have gone and got theirs early.
Squad24 Aug 2026
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Volos NPS has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Lazaros Lamprou 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Volos NPS training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giannis Kargas 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Experience through the door at Volos NPS
Jonathan Segura arrives at 36 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A wage question at Volos NPS
Ilias Chatzitheodoridis has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A season on the outside for Matías Gómez
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Volos NPS has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Market17 Aug 2026
Volos NPS have let the market know Tasos Tsokanis can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ilias Chatzitheodoridis is living that version at Volos NPS, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Carles Soria pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Market10 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jan Hurtado wants continental football; whether Volos NPS can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matías González and Volos NPS agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Lazaros Lamprou 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.
In brief
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Market
The clock runs on Joca's contract
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Market
Volos NPS and Juanpi are talking past each other
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lazaros Lamprou commits to Volos NPS for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volos NPS this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Hamza Mendyl has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Volos NPS.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Volos NPS training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Comba 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.