Marked for Frankie Runham
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Sep 2027
A European night to forget for SC Freiburg
1‑4. AZ play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Noahkai Banks: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” SC Freiburg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match19 Sep 2027
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad20 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SC Freiburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Frankie Runham is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Marked 8.12 — 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.
The dugout20 Sep 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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Mio Backhaus left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mio Backhaus will call it something else in private.
Match19 Sep 2027
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Köln scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market23 Aug 2027
Lukas Kübler hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SC Freiburg can pretend not to have heard.
Market23 Aug 2027
St. Pauli pay $6.9M, 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Noah Atubolu 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Frankie Runham is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Transfer targets23 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.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
A loan move for Baylee Dipepa is in the works
SC Freiburg have made the call to Shrewsbury Town. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market23 Aug 2027
The name of Philipp Lienhart keeps appearing in other people's back pages. SC Freiburg say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
Anthony Jung has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at SC Freiburg 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.
Looking ahead23 Aug 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Philipp Treu’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and SC Freiburg needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Jun 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 SC Freiburg, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout28 Jun 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.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Köln have kept their man, and SC Freiburg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Loan watch28 Jun 2027
27 appearances at Sint-Truiden and the goals keep coming. SC Freiburg are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Noahkai Banks 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.
Market28 Jun 2027
He is 20, and nobody at SC Freiburg signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Market28 Jun 2027
The name of Philipp Lienhart keeps appearing in other people's back pages. SC Freiburg say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Max Rosenfelder has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at SC Freiburg 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.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Apr 2027
Anis Mehmeti hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ipswich Town can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout5 Apr 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ipswich Town are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Frankie Runham is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julio Enciso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Marcelino Núñez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match3 Apr 2027
0‑1 to Derby County, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kasey McAteer, and the manager let it.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 David Davies left the room before anybody could ask which.