Marked for Thomas Lindner
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Oct 2026
Michael Lienhart damages knee ligaments — 55 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 55 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
SV Ried will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Mattersburg were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.21, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Thomas Lindner 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 terraces26 Oct 2026
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Florian Dragovic
12 goals and a season average of 7.20 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 8.23 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Florian Dragovic was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Markus Ulmer for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Mattersburg will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michael Lienhart
101 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Admira Wacker will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Mattersburg were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Raphael Baumgartner takes the afternoon — 9.57
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Raphael Baumgartner provided it, and the 9.57 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match14 Sep 2026
First, on 16 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Mattersburg heard it as anything else.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Thomas Lindner and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market14 Sep 2026
Vaduz are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Mattersburg will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wolfgang Onisiwo 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Wolfgang Onisiwo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Sep 2026
Michael Lienhart damages knee ligaments — 109 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
Match7 Sep 2026
Mattersburg refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 13 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer from Maritimo for Raphael Baumgartner was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
No deal for Leon Grgić at that price
Mattersburg offered $4.6M; Sturm Graz said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market7 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Mattersburg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 8 in, 0 out at Mattersburg
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Utrecht is saying, and nobody at Mattersburg is enjoying the guessing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Raphael Baumgartner. 2‑1 against Wolfsberger AC, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.