Marked for Stefan Lienhart
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 May 2027
A fracture rules Esteban Buitrago out for 76 days
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.
Market31 May 2027
“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.
Squad31 May 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2027
A fracture rules Esteban Buitrago out for 101 days
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.
Squad10 May 2027
Ziad El Sheiwi 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.
Squad10 May 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Aarón Romero and Mattersburg agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Martin Lienhart out for 20 days
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.
Squad12 Apr 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Mar 2027
Dominik Wimmer damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Thibault Corbaz: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mattersburg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad15 Mar 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Safet Salimbasic out for 50 days
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.
Squad15 Feb 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
29 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Frederico Namora 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.
Loan watch15 Feb 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Mattersburg, and 0 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
Market15 Feb 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Safet Salimbasic out for 78 days
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
The medical room confirms 62 days on the sidelines for Romario Da Silva, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
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
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Mattersburg have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Philipp Pomer 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.
Loan watch18 Jan 2027
“I watch every Mattersburg game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Grodig runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Massimo Agostini
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.
Match10 Dec 2026
0‑4. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
Match10 Dec 2026
10 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Safet Salimbasic out for 117 days
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.
Market14 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Mattersburg may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Massimo Agostini
59 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Frederico Namora: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mattersburg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match14 Nov 2026
7 matches without a win for Mattersburg
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Mattersburg are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad16 Nov 2026
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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Philipp Pomer 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.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Mattersburg, and 0 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
Match14 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Admira Wacker will be the happier side with the point.
Market16 Nov 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Frederico Namora may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Massimo Agostini damages knee ligaments — 90 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Market19 Oct 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Salko Hamzić is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Safet Salimbasic: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mattersburg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The medical room confirms 15 days on the sidelines for Julian Kalajdzic, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Massimo Agostini damages knee ligaments — 120 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 120 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
6 matches without a win for Mattersburg
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Mattersburg are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Florian Schlager 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Frederico Namora 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for Mattersburg
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match19 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Sep 2026
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Mattersburg pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 Aug 2026
0‑3 to Mattersburg, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Market10 Aug 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 Grodig can pretend not to have heard.
Squad10 Aug 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 Grodig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Sergey Aidarov 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Sergey Aidarov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Grodig dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Grodig
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market10 Aug 2026
Experience through the door at Grodig
René Zia arrives at 35 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.