Marked for Jonas Harder
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Basel keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dynamo Kyiv have kept their man, and FAC Wien go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match12 Sep 2026
Admira Wacker left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FAC Wien, another week without a signature from Murat Şatin.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at FAC Wien
11 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Dejan Posch to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
Flavio faces his old club
Amstetten next, and one man in the FAC Wien dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 21 in, 3 out at FAC Wien
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 21 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
FAC Wien had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at LASK, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Josef Taïeb is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and FAC Wien know which stage they are at.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A strip of cloth that decides nothing on the pitch and tells the dressing room whose opinion counts. The manager has made a statement without making one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Michael Lang has company in his position
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Michael Lang keeps the shirt for now, at FAC Wien's convenience rather than his own.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Aug 2026
The small margins put FAC Wien out
Out, 0‑0 to Amstetten, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match29 Aug 2026
The 89th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Ernad Kupinić decided nobody was going anywhere. Austria Klagenfurt had no time left to answer.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Konstantin Heide: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Basel, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at SV Ried is saying, and nobody at FAC Wien is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Red Bull Salzburg have kept their man, and FAC Wien go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match29 Aug 2026
At last: FAC Wien win one
5 matches without a win, and then this, against Austria Klagenfurt. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Jonas Harder had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market24 Aug 2026
Basel pay Luzern $950.0K for a proper upgrade
Luzern did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $950.0K for Pascal Loretz, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
No deal for Nikolas Muci at that price
Basel offered $1.2M; Grasshopper 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pascal Loretz, and the manager let it.
Market24 Aug 2026
Le Puy Foot 43 are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Basel will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Bećir Omeragić's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A mark of 7.69, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Nassr have kept their man, and Basel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$2.4M was the most the club would pay and Luzern 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.3M — a club that wants Nikolas Muci enough to be asked twice.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Basel have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 33 days on the sidelines for Jonas Harder, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Žan Celar pulls a muscle — 16 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Market17 Aug 2026
Still no ink between Basel and Metinho
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Basel, another week without a signature from Metinho.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Basel
9 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.