“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 The request is on a desk at St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around St. Pauli people have started saying his name in the past tense.
At 18 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.
Squad21 Jul 2031
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Grischa Prömel 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayern Munich have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether St. Pauli can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
TSG Hoffenheim have accepted the money. What St. Pauli do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at St. Pauli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sacha Boey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
St. Pauli offered $21.0K; Hamburger SV 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayern Munich have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
5 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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at St. Pauli can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Pauli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Nov 2030
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sacha Boey 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.
Oliver Burke damages knee ligaments — 115 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad24 Jun 2030
Maxime Estève 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. LOSC Lille have kept their man, and Köln go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Köln will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Köln have made the call to Bayern Munich. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all 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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Julian Brandes has just signed for Köln, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxime Estève 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.