64 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. St. Gallen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
41 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.
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. Gallen 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 93 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 The request is on a desk at St. Gallen, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 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 words a physio says slowly. 132 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
Myron Boadu 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gianluca Contini, and the manager let it.
Player ratings12 Nov 2029
Lukas Daschner was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.54. 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.
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.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
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. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gianluca Contini 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Martin James 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.
“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. Gallen know it.
“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.
Bećir Omeragić 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. Otar Kiteishvili 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings13 Aug 2029
Bećir Omeragić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Basel has been clear about where Juan Gauto stands, which is more than many ever get.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. St. Gallen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at St. Gallen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Colin Kleine-Bekel 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.
Lukas Görtler 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
0‑5 against Young Boys, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Myron Boadu 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Demir Xhemalija is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 24 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Ola Visted 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.
St. Gallen moved before anybody else could: a new deal for Ruben Comert, agreed quietly and announced loudly. Boards extend managers for many reasons; the good one is the one this looks like.
Myron Boadu 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Remo Rodriguez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Denis Mvogo is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. St. Gallen have paid $4.9M for Gianluca Contini, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Uroš Drezgić has just signed for St. Gallen, and for once the answer mattered.
The name of Martin James has come up in conversations St. Gallen were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Myron Boadu 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 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.
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: Gianluca Contini from Siracusa for $4.9M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
In brief
SquadWords at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Lukas Görtler 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Ola Visted 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.
“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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
5 new faces, and St. Gallen are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Myron Boadu 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Oliver O'Connor is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ola Visted 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market29 May 2028
Betim Fazliji returns from a loan that gave him nothing
0 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
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. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 May 2028
Ola Visted 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.
Jozo Stanić 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ola Visted 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.
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.
Myron Boadu 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.