“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Robin Hack and Borussia Mönchengladbach agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nordi Mukiele 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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lukas Ullrich wants continental football; whether Borussia Mönchengladbach can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Borussia Mönchengladbach, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Daniel Batz has written the date down.
Franck Honorat 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Nordi Mukiele has improved at 29, which nobody expected
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Germán Berterame wants continental football; whether Borussia Mönchengladbach can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Nordi Mukiele 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 Borussia Mönchengladbach, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Mönchengladbach have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Kevin Stöger 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 Nordi Mukiele was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Benjamin Hoffmann was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Borussia Mönchengladbach dressing room was either.
Nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach 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 fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Borussia Dortmund moved on, Jens Castrop reports back to Borussia Mönchengladbach, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The offer from Sturm Graz for Fritz Fleck 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tobias Sippel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Borussia Mönchengladbach the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Nordi Mukiele 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dominik Krämer 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.
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.
Nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach 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 dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Philipp Sander's mistake
The offer went to Eintracht Frankfurt this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to Borussia Mönchengladbach 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $7.4M has been paid because Sander Tangvik is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The chase for Muhammed Damar ended with $7.4M changing hands and VfL Wolfsburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Borussia Dortmund offered $7.2M; 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.
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Borussia Mönchengladbach offered $24.9M; Bayer Leverkusen 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.
St. Pauli did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $5.2M for Abdoulie Ceesay, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Borussia Mönchengladbach may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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 Borussia Mönchengladbach hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
He is 20, and nobody at Borussia Mönchengladbach signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Werder Bremen moved on, Tobias Sippel reports back to Borussia Mönchengladbach, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
$74.1M was the most the club would pay and Fenerbahce 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.
The chase for Max Rosenfelder ended with $18.3M changing hands and SC Freiburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Match20 Jan 2027
Ethan Nwaneri wins it after the whistle should have gone
116 minutes played. Ethan Nwaneri found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Hamburger SV went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
6 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.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to VfL Wolfsburg 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Willian Pacho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Borussia Dortmund will be judged on one thing only.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Serhou Guirassy is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Uwe Stein chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.