The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 39 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hertha Wels is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hertha Wels can pretend not to have heard.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johannes Naschberger 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Paul Lehmann will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hertha Wels the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 6.94 on 17 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Janis Blaswich 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.
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.
“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 Hertha Wels know it.
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 are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Hertha Wels will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Claudio Cristallo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hertha Wels the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Janis Blaswich 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 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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dani Villahermosa 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Michael Lang
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Hertha Wels they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Juri Kirchmayr 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tolga Günes 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.
Boardroom25 Dec 2028
125% of the income goes out in wages at Hertha Wels
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Hertha Wels told Tolga Günes something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hertha Wels 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 Hertha Wels, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hertha Wels this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tolga Günes 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniel Sumbu 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hertha Wels can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Amar Hadžimuratović has just signed for Hertha Wels, and for once the answer mattered.
1 for Isak Vojić, marked 7.08, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. John Mellberg is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hertha Wels can pretend not to have heard.
Tolga Günes 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and John Mellberg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vaduz have kept their man, and Hertha Wels go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Hertha Wels pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Hertha Wels are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
23 combined actions and 7.04. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
John Mellberg 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Art Smakaj 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Tolga Günes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Art Smakaj 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.
“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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Amstetten defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Kapfenberg next, and one man in the Hertha Wels dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nobody at Hertha Wels 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Tolga Günes 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Hertha Wels training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. John Mellberg 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Josip Eškinja is on it.
Tolga Günes 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
John Mellberg 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 22 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
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.” Stefan Schlager, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.88, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Hertha Wels and Sturm Graz II, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and John Mellberg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.24 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Half the programme played, position 9, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
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.
0‑5 to First Vienna, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Tolga Günes 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and John Mellberg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑5 Stefan Schlager left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Art Smakaj'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.
Tolga Günes 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
John Mellberg 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Stefan Schlager after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Art Smakaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Hertha Wels, and 2 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Tolga Günes
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.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Marko Fuchs
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hertha Wels this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and John Mellberg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torreense have kept their man, and Hertha Wels go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Hertha Wels have made the call to Rapid Wien. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“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 dugout16 Aug 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Luka Kambič
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 7.04, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Art Smakaj was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hertha Wels can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Stefan Schlager after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Player ratingsMichael Lang beats them one at a time