The words a physio says slowly. 21 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 23 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.
Martin Rasner 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 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mattersburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mattersburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mattersburg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Sturm Graz? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Wolfgang Lienhart signs something — a contract at Mattersburg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mattersburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Mattersburg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Le Havre AC will make the call about Maximilian Posch this week. Mattersburg have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Xaver Posch 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.
117 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mattersburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mattersburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 125 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 132 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mattersburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.