Melayro Bogarde 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.
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 year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at LASK would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and LASK have no good answer.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” FAC Wien had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Austria Klagenfurt paid $2.1M and LASK took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Samuel Adeniran 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.
LASK asked and CSKA Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Slavia Prague have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Modou Kéba Cissé's mistake
Sascha Horvath 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Lukas Kačavenda 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Sascha Horvath was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.45. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ismaïla Coulibaly was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Michael Lazaro was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the LASK dressing room was either.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Saša Kalajdžić has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Florian Flecker.
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.
Sascha Horvath 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Saša Kalajdžić. 1‑0 against WSG Tirol, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 LASK know it.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Michael Lazaro could afford to be generous.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Saša Kalajdžić provided it, and the 9.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Position 2 with 27 on the board, and the queues outside the ticket office are the part of a promotion push that never shows up in a table. The town has decided this one is real.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LASK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Robert Ljubičić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.31. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Austria Lustenau tried to reorganise, LASK did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
LASK ran out of time with Hartberg. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Saša Kalajdžić provided it, and the 9.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
LASK ran out of time with Levski. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
At 21 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.
It finished 3‑1, and it was Saša Kalajdžić’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to LASK.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Samuel Adeniran was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.47. 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. LASK have done the hard part with Levski, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what LASK can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at LASK 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Robert Ljubičić has come out of that comparison in the side, and LASK have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Wolfsberger AC next, and one man in the LASK dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The offer went to Levski this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Laurenz Orgler had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. LASK have paid $2.1M for Arjan Malić, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
The offer from Nyíregyháza for Arjan Malić 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.
“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 LASK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.