Marked for Luis Pick
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Fee done, terms next for Ryan Gauld
VfL Bochum and Vancouver Whitecaps have settled on $6.0M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market17 Aug 2026
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. VfL Bochum have paid $11.8M for Luca Orellano, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Philipp Hercher would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Philipp Hercher is living that version at VfL Bochum, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Karlsruher SC have kept their man, and VfL Bochum go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
The town asked, and VfL Bochum paid $11.8M
Luca Orellano was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $11.8M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Luis Pick 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation VfL Bochum are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at VfL Bochum training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Philipp Hercher 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Carl Johansson gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Carl Johansson has just signed for VfL Bochum, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Juventus 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Hugo Rölleke has come up in conversations VfL Bochum were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Peter Engel 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. René Schäfer is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Helmut Schuster 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Carl Johansson 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Luis Pick commits to VfL Bochum for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The offer went to Monterrey 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Koji Miyoshi 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 VfL Bochum can pretend not to have heard.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Werder Bremen have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Cajetan Lenz. The answer from VfL Bochum has not changed — yet.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kevin Vogt and VfL Bochum agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Luis Pick 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at VfL Bochum can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Ajax: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Juventus have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Gerrit Holtmann 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.