The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Cédric Brunner 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
SquadWords at Wolfsberger AC training over how hard people work
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wolfsberger AC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wolfsberger AC 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.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wolfsberger AC 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 The request is on a desk at Wolfsberger AC, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“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 Wolfsberger AC know it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.22 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wolfsberger AC 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.
Cheick Mamadou Diabaté 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 Wolfsberger AC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raffael Behounek 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Felipe Scheibig has just signed for Wolfsberger AC, and for once the answer mattered.
He is going to Grasshopper, the club has $4.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The name of Nikolas Polster has come up in conversations Wolfsberger AC were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Raffael Behounek 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Wolfsberger AC will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Emin Kujović 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.