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.
Patrik Schick 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 had been thinking. Jonas Hofmann 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Bayer Leverkusen know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Bayer Leverkusen is running low.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Kaio Jorge comes from PSV for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
The chase for Ransford Königsdörffer ended with $13.4M changing hands and Mainz 05 out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The fee is $7.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Heidenheim drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kaio Jorge is living that version at Bayer Leverkusen, and it tends to show in the first month.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Bayer Leverkusen will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Kaio Jorge from PSV for $40.5M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Bayer Leverkusen paid $12.8M and St. Pauli took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The chase for Uchenna Ogundu ended with $5.6M changing hands and FC Augsburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Anthony Correia has just signed for St. Pauli, and for once the answer mattered.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mathias Pereira Lage 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.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Marcel Wagner recited it perfectly.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at St. Pauli heard it as anything else.
Timon Wellenreuther 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.
“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 St. Pauli know it.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Svensson 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Bayer Leverkusen will make the call about Tomoya Ando this week. St. Pauli have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. Timon Wellenreuther has taken the hint, and St. Pauli are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
In brief
Boardroom$26.4M taken back off the St. Pauli table
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.
Timon Wellenreuther 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Svensson 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at St. Pauli pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Timon Wellenreuther 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Martijn Kaars 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.
Day 13 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
The deal that would have taken Ben Voll to Hamburger SV has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to St. Pauli with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mathias Pereira Lage wants continental football; whether St. Pauli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
4 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.
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.
4 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.
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.
4 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.
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.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mathias Pereira Lage wants continental football; whether St. Pauli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
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.
Timon Wellenreuther 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
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Svensson 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 no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Timon Wellenreuther 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Svensson 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Jahmai Simpson-Pusey has come out of that comparison in the side, and St. Pauli have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Timon Wellenreuther 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.
At 30 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at St. Pauli has been clear about where Arkadiusz Pyrka stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Pauli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 St. Pauli hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at St. Pauli is running low.
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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Svensson 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at St. Pauli can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Spartak Subotica did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $3.6M for Lincoln, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lincoln has just signed for St. Pauli, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. St. Pauli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Mathias Pereira Lage wants continental football; whether St. Pauli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karol Mets 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.
Jarell Quansah 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 a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yan Diomandé 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.