Marked for David Ilsanker
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 33. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Pressure builds in the Livyi Bereh boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad7 Feb 2028
David Ilsanker gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. David Ilsanker has just signed for Livyi Bereh, and for once the answer mattered.
Match5 Feb 2028
Still nobody has beaten Livyi Bereh
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match5 Feb 2028
Livyi Bereh make home a hard place to visit
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Sidnney 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.
Match5 Feb 2028
3 matches without a goal for Livyi Bereh
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.
Market7 Feb 2028
The phone has started ringing about Alex Payares again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Brest. Livyi Bereh are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Maksym Mekhaniv 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Grodig may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market18 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Grodig, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 Grodig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Grodig training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Galarza 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aaron Dhondt, and the manager let it.
Market18 Jan 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
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2026
Lukas Hiermann damages knee ligaments — 62 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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 ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. 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
Tempers go at Grodig
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Grodig training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Matic 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Grodig
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Grodig can tell you which week it ends in.
Match17 Oct 2026
A bad afternoon for Grodig against SV Ried
0‑1 to SV Ried, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Lukas Hiermann
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Grodig lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad28 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 Grodig this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A move David Ilsanker would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. David Ilsanker is living that version at Grodig, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Mateo Matic 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Rapid Wien, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A mark of 7.78, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. David Ilsanker is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
The substitution nobody applauded turned out to be the whole story. Grodig were going nowhere until he came on.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kevin Wober and Admira Wacker agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Kevin Wober 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 Aug 2026
Valentino Wober 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Admira Wacker have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.66 on the card, and the Admira Wacker support went home talking about one name.
Squad10 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Admira Wacker are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Match8 Aug 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.