Marked for Peter Onisiwo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Oct 2026
49 days out for Luca Marseiler after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Darmstadt 98 will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match24 Oct 2026
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.
Match24 Oct 2026
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Darmstadt 98 can tell you which week it ends in.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Hiroki Akiyama ran the middle of the pitch — 7.00
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 7.00, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Match24 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Peter Onisiwo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Darmstadt 98 lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Niklas Schmidt was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match17 Oct 2026
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Darmstadt 98 can tell you which week it ends in.
The terraces19 Oct 2026
He is 22 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Kai Klefisch 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 Darmstadt 98 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Darmstadt 98 are still strangers to each other
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Marked 7.24. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
A fracture rules Luca Marseiler out for 113 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Darmstadt 98 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Andrija Maksimović did not need any: 8.06, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market31 Aug 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 Darmstadt 98, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets31 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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrija Maksimović has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match29 Aug 2026
Three points for Darmstadt 98, 2‑0 the final word against VfL Bochum in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad31 Aug 2026
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Kai Klefisch and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
In brief
-
The dugout
The view from the dugout
-
Squad
Peter Onisiwo wants out of the dugout
-
Player ratings
A defender's afternoon for Hiroki Akiyama
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
129 days out for Luca Marseiler after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Darmstadt 98 will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market17 Aug 2026
Fraser Hornby has left for IFK Norrkoping in a $16.9M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market17 Aug 2026
Karlsruher SC pay $8.7M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Darmstadt 98 sell a favourite for $16.9M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Fraser Hornby was one of the reasons people came, and $16.9M does not replace that by itself.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Hertha BSC wanted more than $3.9M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad17 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 Darmstadt 98 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Austria Wien have kept their man, and Darmstadt 98 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market17 Aug 2026
Andrija Maksimović is 19, and Darmstadt 98 have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad17 Aug 2026
No place for Peter Onisiwo in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Darmstadt 98 are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Luca Marseiler breaks a bone — 141 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 141 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $2.8M sale of Paul Will
He is going to Heidenheim, the club has $2.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market10 Aug 2026
Heidenheim pay $2.8M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The offer went to RB Leipzig this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $730.0K — a club that wants Andrija Maksimović enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Stripfing, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Hiroki Akiyama and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Benjamin Neumann is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gregor Busch is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$3.5M on the table at Hertha BSC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
390 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Careers like that are not built on purpose any more, and Darmstadt 98 know exactly what they have.
Market3 Aug 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 Darmstadt 98, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Darmstadt 98 did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Hiroki Akiyama and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fraser Hornby and Darmstadt 98 agree another 5 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Darmstadt 98 can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Rogério is in the works
Darmstadt 98 have made the call to VfL Wolfsburg. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Stripfing have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market3 Aug 2026
Stripfing say no — this time
The offer from Luzern for Michael Wober 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A move Sandro Ingolitsch 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. Sandro Ingolitsch is living that version at Stripfing, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Dominik Wober, 21, steals the show — 8.22
Marked 8.22 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Peter Onisiwo has come up in conversations Stripfing were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Stripfing have gone to LASK 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
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Stripfing heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marco König and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Michael 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.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Konrad Trimmel has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.