“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Basel can pretend not to have heard.
Xherdan Shaqiri 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Basel and Zurich, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Marked 8.85. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Basel.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Kasper Høgh was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Bénie Traoré was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Basel heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Basel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Kasper Høgh had Basel level again within 3 minutes, and Luzern never got to play with a lead at all.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Samuel Marques is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at Basel is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The phone has started ringing about Kaio Eduardo again, and this time the name on the line is Heidenheim. Basel are listening politely and promising nothing.
Xherdan Shaqiri 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Maximiliano Gómez wants continental football; whether Basel can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Basel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
The chase for Samuel Marques ended with $2.3M changing hands and Grasshopper out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Xherdan Shaqiri 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ibrahim Salah. 1‑0 against Vaduz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.44. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Basel.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Koba Koindredi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Timothée Kolodziejczak has just signed for Grasshopper, and for once the answer mattered.
Justin Hammel 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grasshopper this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Hassane Imourane 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.
The phone has started ringing about Luka Mikulić again, and this time the name on the line is Basel. Grasshopper are listening politely and promising nothing.
19 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Grasshopper training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yohan Tavares 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.