Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Altach have kept their man, and Kapfenberg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Korherr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 3 and 33 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Kapfenberg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albin Berisha 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.
Richard Strebinger 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.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Stripfing, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Yusuf Demir was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
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.
There were 88 minutes on the clock and FC Liefering had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Kapfenberg did not stop to explain themselves.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Kapfenberg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albin Berisha 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kapfenberg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexander Murillo. 1‑0 against FC Liefering, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Marco Arnautovic on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
Player ratingsThomas Maier beats them one at a time
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.65 for the rest of it.
Albin Berisha 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.
1‑2 to First Vienna, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad7 Dec 2026
David Korherr 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Marco Arnautovic after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Richard Strebinger has moved up it.
8 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Kapfenberg can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Kapfenberg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albin Berisha 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.
Robin Littig 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.
0‑1 to Amstetten, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Marco Arnautovic to a room that had heard them before.
“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 dugout23 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Joris Boguo
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kapfenberg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad19 Oct 2026
David Korherr 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.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
92 minutes played. Meletios Mišković found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Young Violets went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Albin Berisha 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kapfenberg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Marked 8.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Kapfenberg.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Marco Arnautovic, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutLuca Hassler dropped after a run of poor form
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 21 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The deal that would have taken Marco Kadlec to First Vienna has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Kapfenberg with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Albin Berisha 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AS Saint-Etienne have kept their man, and Kapfenberg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Kapfenberg will try again when the window opens; Altach may not be selling by then.
Squad7 Sep 2026
David Korherr 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
A 2‑1 win over Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Adrian Marinović, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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 Kapfenberg, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Austria Salzburg for Nico Mikulic 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.
The deal with WSG Tirol 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.
Kapfenberg asked and Altach said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kapfenberg offered $78.0K; VVV-Venlo said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
The offer went to Luzern 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $1.2M has been paid because Yusuf Demir is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Kapfenberg asked and Rapid Wien 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.4M — a club that wants Andrés Andrade enough to be asked twice.
The deal with PSV 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Rapid Wien keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Albin Berisha 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.
In brief
The terracesKapfenberg spend $1.2M on the signing the town wanted
44 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Kapfenberg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Alexander Briedl has, at Kapfenberg, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Albin Berisha 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Albin Berisha. 2‑0 against FC Liefering, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Heinz Ulmer has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Thomas Prass is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Christoph Lienhart is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.