Marked for Welligton
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 42. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Aug 2028
The offer from Jubilo Iwata for Masaya Tashiro 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Matheus Savio 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.
Market14 Aug 2028
The shirt still fits. Welligton is back at Urawa Reds, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A move Daiki Sakata would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Daiki Sakata is living that version at Urawa Reds, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Words at Urawa Reds training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paik Seung-Ho 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.
Match12 Aug 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Masaki Watai. 1‑0 against Vegalta Sendai, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Marked 8.20 — 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
9 new faces, and Urawa Reds are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces26 Jun 2028
Anger at FC Augsburg spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market26 Jun 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Aleksandar Pavlović 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kristijan Jakić 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Market26 Jun 2028
João Graça is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Feb 2028
Fabian Rieder damages knee ligaments — 36 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Feb 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market28 Feb 2028
Mads Pedersen has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Augsburg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market28 Feb 2028
Joe Scally wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Match26 Feb 2028
4 matches without a win for FC Augsburg
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around FC Augsburg are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Feb 2028
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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tiago Tomás 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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. FC Augsburg lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Elias Saad runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Jan 2028
Mads Pedersen has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Augsburg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad31 Jan 2028
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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Kristijan Jakić 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.
Match29 Jan 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Tiago Tomás’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to FC Augsburg.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Marked 7.90. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad31 Jan 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Oliver Burke commits to FC Augsburg for another 4 years.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Han-Noah Massengo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at FC Augsburg 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.
Loan watch31 Jan 2028
18 starts and an average of 6.68. He went there to play and he is playing, which is the only thing a loan was ever for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market16 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Augsburg can pretend not to have heard.
Market16 Aug 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Aleksandar Pavlović 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mahmut Küçükşahin is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 2027
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Tiago Tomás 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market9 Aug 2027
Clau Mendes has left for Heidenheim in a $3.1M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Hennes Behrens is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tiago Tomás 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Experience through the door at FC Augsburg
Welligton arrives at 37 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer from Vissel Kobe for Hirokazu Ishihara 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
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Urawa Reds this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
Matheus Savio 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Shusaku Nishikawa has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Urawa Reds 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Welligton asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.