Marked for Thomas Onisiwo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Jan 2027
15 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market18 Jan 2027
The fee is $250.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Mattersburg drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Peter Tschernegg 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Quintijn Steelant, and the manager let it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Heinz Trimmel and Admira Wacker agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Admira Wacker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market18 Jan 2027
The name of Gernot Lindner has come up in conversations Mattersburg were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Market18 Jan 2027
Admira Wacker pay $250.0K, 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pedro Dinis and Mattersburg agree another 3 years.
Loan watch18 Jan 2027
“I did not go to Sturm Graz to sit and watch. I want to come back to Mattersburg and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 22 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sebastian Wober
15 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Xaver Posch
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Mattersburg can pretend not to have heard.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Mattersburg
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Mattersburg are no longer polite ones.
Market7 Sep 2026
The SV Ried deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Heinz Trimmel reports back to Mattersburg with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Gonzalo Groba 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gernot Kalajdzic 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.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The crowd has taken to Xaver Posch
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.