Marked for Stefan Baumgartner
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Sep 2028
“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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Up for the corner, and Tobias Engel delivers — 7.68
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tobias Engel scored, was marked 7.68, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobias Engel 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Raf van de Riet and Mattersburg agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Marked 8.37 — 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 ratings11 Sep 2028
Nobody could get near Uwe Beck
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match9 Sep 2028
Mattersburg hit back inside 4 minutes
Wolfsberger AC held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Mattersburg answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Patrick Wimmer, and the manager let it.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Mattersburg know it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match30 Aug 2028
SV Ried go through and Mattersburg go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces4 Sep 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 10 of the 32 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad4 Sep 2028
There were 6 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.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Tobias Engel 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.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match2 Sep 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Musiliu Odekunle 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.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
Marked 5.17, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Aug 2028
Mattersburg win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. SV Ried will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Squad28 Aug 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Mattersburg may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match26 Aug 2028
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Mattersburg have 3 straight wins of it.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Nobody could get near Uwe Beck
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Ignazio Mazza 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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.14, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match26 Aug 2028
Three points for Mattersburg, 2‑1 the final word against SV Ried in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.84, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad28 Aug 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dominik Laimer, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Aug 2028
The offer from Vis Pesaro for Stefan 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.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
Dominik Laimer, 36, rolls back the years — 7.93
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Musiliu Odekunle is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad21 Aug 2028
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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
At 32 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Tobias Engel 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.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
A performance of 9.13 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match19 Aug 2028
Austria Wien made Mattersburg work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Two goals and a mark of 9.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market14 Aug 2028
“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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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.
Match12 Aug 2028
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Mattersburg and Grodig in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Ignazio Mazza has improved at 31, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match12 Aug 2028
Three points for Mattersburg, 4‑2 the final word against Grodig in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobias Engel 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 Aug 2028
Michael Baumgartner was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.70. 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
Steady
Market17 Jul 2028
“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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Stefan Baumgartner is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Ignazio Mazza has improved at 31, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jun 2028
52 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.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
A move Antonio Gallardo 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. Antonio Gallardo is living that version at Mattersburg, and it tends to show in the first month.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 May 2028
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.
Squad29 May 2028
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Mattersburg have had the benefit of it.
Squad29 May 2028
Tobias Engel 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 May 2028
80 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.
Market8 May 2028
“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.
Squad8 May 2028
Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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
Squad10 Apr 2028
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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobias Engel 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 watch10 Apr 2028
“I watch every Mattersburg game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Rapid Wien runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad13 Mar 2028
138 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Marc-Aurèle Caillard 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Ignazio Mazza 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Feb 2028
Marcos Ferreira 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Ignazio Mazza 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marc-Aurèle Caillard, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jan 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Markus Lainer
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rapid Wien lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Jan 2028
The bid was some way short and Rapid Wien did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tobias Gulliksen and Rapid Wien agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rapid Wien this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Rapid Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Serge-Philippe Raux-Yao 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 watch10 Jan 2028
13 appearances away from home and 5 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Jan 2028
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Mattersburg have had the benefit of it.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Geovanne Martins has just signed for Mattersburg, and for once the answer mattered.
Market3 Jan 2028
The name of Stefan Baumgartner has come up in conversations Mattersburg were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Marcos Ferreira 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Musiliu Odekunle 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.
Market3 Jan 2028
Luka Caculović is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Mattersburg has been clear about where Luka Caculović stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Dec 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
“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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Sep 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Jürgen Bergmann, 34, rolls back the years — 7.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match18 Sep 2027
4 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcos Ferreira 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 ratings20 Sep 2027
A performance of 8.70 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad20 Sep 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stefan Baumgartner, and the manager let it.
Match18 Sep 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Uwe Beck runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Aug 2027
Dominik Laimer breaks a bone — 110 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match28 Aug 2027
SV Ried are out and Mattersburg go through, 2‑2 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match25 Aug 2027
A 1‑0 win over SV Ried, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad30 Aug 2027
Anthony Schmid: 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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Musiliu Odekunle, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Tobias Engel in a row with a teammate
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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces30 Aug 2027
At 21 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 ratings30 Aug 2027
Ninety minutes of Markus Alaba at his very best
Marked 8.77. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Mattersburg.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Aug 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match31 Jul 2027
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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Tobias Engel
“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.
Match31 Jul 2027
Red Bull Salzburg left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” David Skubl commits to Mattersburg for another 3 years.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mattersburg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Market2 Aug 2027
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Mattersburg has been clear about where Peter Hinteregger stands, which is more than many ever get.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
5.58. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Jun 2027
The offer from Rapid Wien for Jürgen Bergmann 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Stefan Baumgartner is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market21 Jun 2027
The chase for Aaron Dhondt ended with $95.0K changing hands and Grodig out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Stefan Baumgartner commits to Mattersburg for another 4 years.
Squad8 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.
Market8 Mar 2027
The loan was meant to give him football. 0 games and 0 goals later he is back at Mattersburg no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Feb 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Tobias Engel 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.
Market15 Feb 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Philipp Alaba signs something — a contract at Mattersburg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Dec 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market14 Dec 2026
The name of Philipp Alaba keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Mattersburg say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Mattersburg that is a harder question to answer.