Marked for Oleksandr Diedov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Apr 2028
A falling-out at Altach
Benjamin Böckle and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Benedikt Zech 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Altach are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Apr 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words exchanged at Altach
Benjamin Böckle 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
A row about effort at Altach
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benedikt Zech was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Altach can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loan watch10 Apr 2028
“I watch every Altach game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Austria Wien runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market10 Apr 2028
He is 19, and nobody at Altach signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Oleksandr Diedov and Altach agree another 3 years.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
A promise honoured at Altach
Something was said to Oleksandr Diedov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.