10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Borussia Mönchengladbach has to find a result from somewhere.
Borussia Mönchengladbach asked and RB Leipzig said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$28.0M was the most the club would pay and Eintracht Frankfurt were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Karlsruher SC waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Mönchengladbach can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $31.2M — a club that wants Jonathan Burkardt enough to be asked twice.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Mönchengladbach can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Borussia Mönchengladbach hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Hugo Bolin 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.
Borussia Mönchengladbach asked and Bayern Munich said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Luca Schuler 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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Hamburger SV 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Mönchengladbach have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Hiroki Ito 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.
“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; Borussia Mönchengladbach are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Felix Jäger after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach heard it as anything else.
Kevin Diks 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 at Borussia Mönchengladbach 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Felix Jäger after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ko Itakura signs something — a contract at Borussia Mönchengladbach or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Mönchengladbach can pretend not to have heard.
Something was said to Yoan Bonny and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Borussia Mönchengladbach, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Union Berlin next, and one man in the Borussia Mönchengladbach dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Borussia Mönchengladbach will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.