“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 The request is on a desk at Eintracht Frankfurt, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Eintracht Frankfurt they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Eintracht Frankfurt have done the hard part with VfL Wolfsburg, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Mario Gila 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arthur Theate 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 15 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.
Eintracht Frankfurt asked and Bayern Munich said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eintracht Frankfurt 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 Eintracht Frankfurt this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Eintracht Frankfurt can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Arthur Theate 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nediljko Labrović has his answer from Eintracht Frankfurt; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
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 Mario Götze.
Eintracht Frankfurt asked and Bayer Leverkusen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 Eintracht Frankfurt, and it is not being withdrawn.
Werder Bremen have accepted the money. What Eintracht Frankfurt do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
$1.7M was the most the club would pay and RB Leipzig 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 deal with FC Augsburg is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Mario Gila 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Eintracht Frankfurt can pretend not to have heard.
Mario Gila 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 Dec 2028
Arthur Theate 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Eintracht Frankfurt, another week without a signature from Christian Kofane.
“I watch every Eintracht Frankfurt game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Rubin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
Player ratingsSaïd El Mala beats them one at a time
“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 Eintracht Frankfurt, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Can Uzun and Eintracht Frankfurt agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Mario Gila 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. Omar Correia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Eintracht Frankfurt the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arthur Theate was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Eintracht Frankfurt game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Rubin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 Eintracht Frankfurt know it.
In brief
The dugoutHalf-satisfied: Frank Arnold on the draw
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Eintracht Frankfurt have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Arthur Theate 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 Eintracht Frankfurt is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
Eintracht Frankfurt asked and SC Freiburg 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Eintracht Frankfurt have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Eintracht Frankfurt, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Emir Sahiti is living that version at Eintracht Frankfurt, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Eintracht Frankfurt hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Everything agreed with RB Leipzig, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Eintracht Frankfurt 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 Eintracht Frankfurt 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 Eintracht Frankfurt can pretend not to have heard.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Jamal Musiala was one of the reasons people came, and $147.8M does not replace that by itself.
At 23 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.
Mario Gila 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Elye Wahi has improved at 25, 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.