Omari Kellyman 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mattias Käit was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout14 May 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Giacomo Satalino'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.
Nobody at Thun 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.
Antonio Palumbo has been around long enough to know what the spring feels like when it goes wrong, and he can feel it. A dressing room that is frightened plays like one.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Thun would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Thun lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Thun this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Mattias Käit 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Thun will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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 Thun, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 51 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 26 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Ruggero 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.
Yverdon will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Benjamin Goller has pre-agreed a move to Thun, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Thun, another week without a signature from Giacomo Satalino.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Thun, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Thun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Nils Reichmuth 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.
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.
115 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Thun lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Yverdon keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
Zurich will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nevio Di Giusto has pre-agreed a move to Thun, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 116 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Basel go through and Thun go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
“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 Thun, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 17 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Thun have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Add another name to the list: Lugano have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Marc Gutbub. The answer from Thun has not changed — yet.
In brief
SquadMarco Ruggero falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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 Thun 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 Thun this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Mattias Käit 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 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 Thun 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Marco Bürki’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Thun needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Thun will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Thun 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 Mattias Käit was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Kevin Sommer could afford to be generous.