“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Heidenheim have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Diant Ramaj: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Eren Dinkçi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marvin Pieringer. 1‑0 against Werder Bremen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Words at Empoli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrea Fulignati 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Nosa Obaretin has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“I watch every Empoli game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Heidenheim runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Empoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Diant Ramaj 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.
3 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Felix König has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Christoph Weiß 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Christian Schulz is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Heidenheim has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Kevin Martínez
The offer from Foggia for Samuele Perisan 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.
Antonio Candela 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.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Thomas Pledl commits to Heidenheim for another 2 years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Heidenheim 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.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Heidenheim have gone and got theirs early.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Empoli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.