Marked for Marcel Fuchs
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
An offer of $53.1M for Mile Svilar
VfB Stuttgart have gone to AS Roma with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Bayern Munich for Bilal El Khannouss 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 targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. VfB Stuttgart have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market17 Aug 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Deniz Undav’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Marcel Fuchs, 21, is the weekend’s best young player
Measured against every other kid in the division and first among them. The senior award is where VfB Stuttgart would like this to lead.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Nikolas Nartey wants to know why he earns less
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and VfB Stuttgart have no good answer.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
David Müller knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and David Müller trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market17 Aug 2026
The minutes were not coming at VfB Stuttgart, so he will look for them at Borussia Dortmund. Everybody involved calls it development; for the player it is simply a chance to play.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match8 Aug 2026
6‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Sebastian Lienhart takes the afternoon — 8.95
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sebastian Lienhart provided it, and the 8.95 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market10 Aug 2026
Grodig come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Mattersburg did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
Marcel Fuchs has gone, the accounts have $4.5M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Market10 Aug 2026
Business is business: Marcel Fuchs goes
VfB Stuttgart paid $4.5M and Mattersburg took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marcel Kalajdzic and Mattersburg agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Mattersburg asked and Altach said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. 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
Alexander Posch 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
VfB Stuttgart offered $45.0M; Brentford 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
SC Freiburg come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and VfB Stuttgart did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 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 VfB Stuttgart heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Marcel Fuchs gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marcel Fuchs has just signed for VfB Stuttgart, and for once the answer mattered.
Market10 Aug 2026
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Uwe Meier has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Jamie Leweling asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Hamburger SV for Marcel Kalajdzic 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Dejan Posch could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.35
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.35, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.95, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Mattersburg have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 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 Mattersburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Konrad Lindner 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.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Dejan Posch
At 18 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$32.7M on the table at Brentford. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
VfB Stuttgart asked and Eintracht Frankfurt said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and VfB Stuttgart did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
VfB Stuttgart have gone to Mattersburg with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Market3 Aug 2026
Deniz Undav wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at VfB Stuttgart hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Deniz Undav and VfB Stuttgart agree another 3 years.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at VfB Stuttgart, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market3 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at VfB Stuttgart has been clear about where Dan-Axel Zagadou stands, which is more than many ever get.