83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bayern Munich lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bayern Munich people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bayern Munich can pretend not to have heard.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Boardroom1 Sep 2036
Bayern Munich close the window on a squad of their own making
25 in and 27 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Ilaix Moriba 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.
Squad1 Sep 2036
Words at Bayern Munich training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Levi Colwill 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.
90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bayern Munich lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 The request is on a desk at Bayern Munich, and it is not being withdrawn.
The shirt still fits. Kadan Young is back at Bayern Munich, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
$2.4M was the most the club would pay and Bayer Leverkusen 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kadan Young has just signed for Bayern Munich, and for once the answer mattered.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bayern Munich lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and VfL Bochum waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bayern Munich is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Lausanne-Sport for Ilaix Moriba was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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 Bayern Munich, and it is not being withdrawn.
Position 3, 80 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Bayern Munich have gone to Bayer Leverkusen with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bayern Munich is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Bayern Munich asked and Hertha BSC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The words a physio says slowly. 106 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Nürnberg waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bayern Munich is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayern Munich heard it as anything else.
Erling Haaland 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.
Squad11 Aug 2036
Levi Colwill 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
The words a physio says slowly. 113 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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Sven Baumann has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bayern Munich have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
The offer from Bayer Leverkusen for Hugo Ekitiké was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayern Munich heard it as anything else.
The phone has started ringing about Ilaix Moriba again, and this time the name on the line is Leicester City. Bayern Munich are listening politely and promising nothing.
Jamal Musiala 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Bayern Munich will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Levi Colwill was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ilaix Moriba has his answer from Bayern Munich; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
11 goals in 34 games at RB Leipzig — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bayern Munich updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
In brief
The dugoutIlaix Moriba knocks on the manager’s door
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Kaio Eduardo’s exile
2‑1 against Borussia Dortmund, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Bayern Munich support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayern Munich 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.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tobías Rubio will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RB Leipzig the goodbyes have quietly begun.
17 goals in 29 games at Mainz 05 — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at RB Leipzig updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The approach has been made to Slávia TU Košice and the answer is somebody else's to give. These things are settled in private and reported in public, usually in that order.
Player ratings14 Apr 2036
Samu Aghehowa was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.63. 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayern Munich this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Levi Colwill was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Bayern Munich know it.
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.
5 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.
9 goals in 11 games at Hamburger SV — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bayern Munich updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RB Leipzig they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Mar 2036
Words at RB Leipzig training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ante Crnac 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 at RB Leipzig will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
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.
A brace, and Samu Aghehowa takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samu Aghehowa provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RB Leipzig is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at RB Leipzig heard it as anything else.
Tommaso Martinelli 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.
6 matches without a win, and then this, against Arminia Bielefeld. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
14 shut-outs in 26 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Daniil Khudyakov has been having a lot of them.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. RB Leipzig have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RB Leipzig is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 RB Leipzig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Deniz Zeitler will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RB Leipzig the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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 first defeat in 6 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Eintracht Frankfurt; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
0‑1 to Eintracht Frankfurt, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Dec 2035
Ante Crnac 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rico Lewis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Samu Aghehowa is on it.
2‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and RB Leipzig came through the finding-out well against Levski.
Player ratings17 Dec 2035
A brace, and Samu Aghehowa takes the afternoon — 8.96
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samu Aghehowa provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RB Leipzig is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
“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 RB Leipzig hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RB Leipzig they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Tobías Rubio has agreed terms with VfL Bochum for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Keke Topp 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.
“I watch every RB Leipzig game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Mainz 05 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Keke Topp. 2‑0 against Fortuna Düsseldorf, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match8 Dec 2035
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for RB Leipzig. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
2‑0 against Sturm Graz, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at RB Leipzig heard it as anything else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Santiago Silva will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RB Leipzig the goodbyes have quietly begun.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RB Leipzig will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RB Leipzig they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Román Rodríguez has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Crnac was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
2‑1 against LOSC Lille, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Keke Topp was at the centre of the description.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RB Leipzig will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at RB Leipzig is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at RB Leipzig pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RB Leipzig they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.65, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ante Crnac was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hákon Arnar Haraldsson is on it.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
2‑0 against Levski, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Samu Aghehowa was at the centre of the description.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RB Leipzig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Deniz Zeitler will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RB Leipzig the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RB Leipzig can pretend not to have heard.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
39 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 target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
Everybody at RB Leipzig saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Words at RB Leipzig training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ante Crnac 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at RB Leipzig, and both men came out saying it was fine.
4‑1. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
Hákon Arnar Haraldsson 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lewis Koumas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around RB Leipzig the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Iván Azón.
8.12. 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at RB Leipzig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Maciej Kikolski reports back to RB Leipzig with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Santiago Silva wants continental football; whether RB Leipzig can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at RB Leipzig can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. RB Leipzig will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around RB Leipzig people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RB Leipzig they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The offer from Carrarese for Alessandro Bianco was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Nico González 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.
RB Leipzig offered $790.0K; Hannover 96 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Matte Smets has his answer from RB Leipzig; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Holstein Kiel waiting with a shirt. Nobody at RB Leipzig is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at RB Leipzig can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at RB Leipzig is running low.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RB Leipzig 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 RB Leipzig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 RB Leipzig know it.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Luka Jovanović has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
Add another name to the list: TSG Hoffenheim have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Lewis Koumas. The answer from RB Leipzig has not changed — yet.
In brief
The dugoutSamu Aghehowa without the man who signed him
SquadWords at RB Leipzig training over how hard people work
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Arminia Bielefeld waiting with a shirt. Nobody at RB Leipzig is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what RB Leipzig can pretend not to have heard.
Nico González 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. David Albrecht has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around RB Leipzig people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around RB Leipzig they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The chase for Mervin Gbeme ended with $2.0M changing hands and Union Berlin out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at RB Leipzig heard it as anything else.
RB Leipzig offered $1.3M; VfL Wolfsburg 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.5M — a club that wants Leon Grgić enough to be asked twice.
With 9 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Add another name to the list: RB Leipzig have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Samu Aghehowa. The answer from Bayern Munich has not changed — yet.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayern Munich heard it as anything else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bayern Munich can pretend not to have heard.
Erling Haaland 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alphonso Davies and Bayern Munich agree another 2 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Levi Colwill was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bayern Munich have gone to Darmstadt 98 with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Bayern Munich had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Jamal Musiala 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bayern Munich is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad21 May 2035
Levi Colwill 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to George Ilenikhena, and the manager let it.
Boardroom21 May 2035
107% of the income goes out in wages at Bayern Munich
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Nobody at Bayern Munich will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
The dugoutSamu Aghehowa knocks on the manager's door
Beaten 1‑2 by Borussia Dortmund in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 12 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mateo Retegui will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bayern Munich the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayern Munich this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Apr 2035
Nico O'Reilly 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bayern Munich, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Boardroom23 Apr 2035
105% of the income goes out in wages at Bayern Munich
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.