Marked for Michael Gregoritsch
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Takashi Usami out for 57 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Augsburg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer from RB Leipzig for Robin Fellhauer 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FC Augsburg have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Match9 Jan 2027
6 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
“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.
Match9 Jan 2027
The goals have deserted FC Augsburg
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at FC Augsburg can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Alexis Claude-Maurice 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match9 Jan 2027
0‑2 to RB Leipzig, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
Takashi Usami breaks a bone — 100 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Dec 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Jorge De Frutos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market7 Dec 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Augsburg heard it as anything else.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Michael Gregoritsch 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 ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
When it matters, Mert Kömür plays
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
A one-man rearguard from Finn Dahmen
There were 13 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
140 days out for Takashi Usami after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Augsburg will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Augsburg may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Augsburg heard it as anything else.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Finn Dahmen 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.
Market2 Nov 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether FC Augsburg can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Jorge De Frutos 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
Eintracht Frankfurt left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Something was said to Alexis Claude-Maurice and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match3 Oct 2026
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.
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 FC Augsburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match3 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted FC Augsburg
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at FC Augsburg can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 20 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorge De Frutos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Nobody could get near Anton Kade
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑1 to VfB Stuttgart, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.