The mood at Karlsruher SC has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ferdinand Pohl will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Karlsruher SC the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad23 Jul 2035
Words at Karlsruher SC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David van der Werff 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.
Sneider Navarro 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.
Karlsruher SC have made the call to Köln. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Karlsruher SC, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Union Berlin waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Karlsruher SC is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Karlsruher SC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The deal with Köln 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Karlsruher SC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Borussia Mönchengladbach pay $830.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Tim De Roon has, at Karlsruher SC, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ognjen Obradovic was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Eintracht Frankfurt have kept their man, and Karlsruher SC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Karlsruher SC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Yll Gashi has agreed terms with VfB Stuttgart for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ognjen Obradovic was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Youssoupha Niang has his answer from Karlsruher SC; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Karlsruher SC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Karlsruher SC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David van der Werff was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sneider Navarro 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Karlsruher SC is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Karlsruher SC has been clear about where Olivier Boscagli stands, which is more than many ever get.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Karlsruher SC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Mar 2035
Words at Karlsruher SC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ognjen Obradovic 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.
Something was said to Carter Pinnington and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 dugout26 Mar 2035
Somebody else is better right now than Marco Sulzner
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Karlsruher SC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Karlsruher SC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Abdul Aziz Al-Fawaz has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
David van der Werff 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Borussia Dortmund have kept their man, and Karlsruher SC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.