“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen 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 St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. St. Gallen found something the first half had given no notice of, and Sion could not hold what they had.
Myron Boadu 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.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
St. Gallen paid $2.4M and Köln took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
8 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tijn den Boggende is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Martin James is 19, and St. Gallen have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at St. Gallen has been clear about where Betim Fazliji stands, which is more than many ever get.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Vaduz? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.