Marked for Mateo Kritzer
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market9 Aug 2027
David Herold has left for Basel in a $20.3M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
The terraces9 Aug 2027
Karlsruher SC sell a favourite for $20.3M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. David Herold was one of the reasons people came, and $20.3M does not replace that by itself.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Karlsruher SC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market9 Aug 2027
Hertha BSC pay $3.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marvin Wanitzek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Nicolai Rapp 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.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
12 new faces, and Karlsruher SC 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.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Apr 2027
6 matches without a win for Karlsruher SC
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Karlsruher SC are no longer polite ones.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Bence Dárdai 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Karlsruher SC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ameen Al-Dakhil 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.
Match3 Apr 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Daniel Hanslik
“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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Something was said to Bence Dárdai and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
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 Richard Weiß to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match9 Jan 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Karlsruher SC did not have in the autumn.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: FC Metz keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad11 Jan 2027
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ameen Al-Dakhil was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Marvin Wanitzek 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rayo Vallecano have kept their man, and Karlsruher SC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.