Marked for Ionut Marin
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Heidenheim's wait for a win
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Heidenheim has to find a result from somewhere.
Match21 Nov 2026
0‑1 to RB Leipzig, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Luca Kerber 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
A promise honoured for Ionut Marin
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Heidenheim told Ionut Marin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Kevin Thomas left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad23 Nov 2026
One yellow too many, and a match watched from the stand. The most avoidable absence in football, and Heidenheim will feel it on Saturday.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
TSG Hoffenheim next, and one man in the Heidenheim dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match31 Oct 2026
1‑7 to Bayern Munich, 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
9 matches without a win for Heidenheim
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Heidenheim are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match31 Oct 2026
Ionut Marin among the goals in a wild afternoon
8 goals in one match, Ionut Marin on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Heidenheim and Bayern Munich.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Heidenheim 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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑7, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Heidenheim told Marnon Busch something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Jan Schöppner. Heidenheim will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
The dugout2 Nov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Oct 2026
8 matches without a win for Heidenheim
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Heidenheim are no longer polite ones.
Match24 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Mainz 05, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Alessandro Vogt
“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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Kevin Thomas to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Heidenheim
Something was said to Tim Siersleben and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Looking ahead26 Oct 2026
A test against the best for Heidenheim
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Bayern Munich.
Market26 Oct 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Frank Feller has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Heidenheim.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The formation has left Nicolas Höfler behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Heidenheim will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Heidenheim
6 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Yannik Wagner is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Adrian Beck
“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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Michael Heule 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kévin Bérigaud and Heidenheim agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Ionut Marin 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 Ionut Marin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mathias Honsak
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad28 Sep 2026
9 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match23 Sep 2026
Union Berlin ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match26 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Heidenheim
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Heidenheim are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kacper Potulski is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Michael Heule and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 7.61 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Match26 Sep 2026
Level with 86 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Heidenheim had all but put away. VfL Wolfsburg will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. 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
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mathias Honsak
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 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 Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Sep 2026
Union Berlin left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“I want to play”: Ionut Marin speaks
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Kevin Thomas left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Christian Conteh, and the manager let it.
Market21 Sep 2026
Heidenheim have made Omar Traoré available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Christian Conteh dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mathias Honsak damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Luca Kerber hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Heidenheim asked and Olympiacos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Steven Benda, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Michael Heule and Heidenheim agree another 4 years.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Heidenheim 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Kevin Thomas to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Mathias Honsak damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
Market7 Sep 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 Heidenheim can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 18 in, 1 out at Heidenheim
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
RB Leipzig wanted more than $970.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Heidenheim asked and Bournemouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Steven Benda has moved up it.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Bayer Leverkusen next, and one man in the Heidenheim dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
48 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Heidenheim lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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 Heidenheim, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
VfL Wolfsburg pay $3.0M, 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer from SC Freiburg for Paul Hennrich 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 targets31 Aug 2026
Bayern Munich wanted more than $1.2M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Sparta Prague is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Jakob Schöller is 20, and Heidenheim 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.40. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Mathias Honsak
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mainz 05 have kept their man, and Heidenheim go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The offer went to Rapid Wien 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
VfB Stuttgart wanted more than $1.8M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad24 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 Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Sparta Prague: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Market24 Aug 2026
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Stefan Smarkalev arrives from Werder Bremen with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
Squad24 Aug 2026
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Heidenheim has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market17 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Matyáš Vojta had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.95, and nobody on the pitch better.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $430.0K — a club that wants Patrick Kpozo enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Banik Ostrava 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Andy Irving 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Banik Ostrava wanted more than $390.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Michal Kohút’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Sparta Prague.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Business is business: Ionut Marin goes
Sparta Prague paid $8.4M and Pandurii took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Pandurii did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$1.7M was the most the club would pay and Astra were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Pandurii have done the hard part with Astra, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ianis Bancu and Pandurii agree another 5 years.
Player ratings10 Aug 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Pandurii training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dragos Bancu 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Pandurii
Ovidiu Hagi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Dukla Prague for Andy Irving 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Sparta Prague have paid $8.4M for Ionut Marin, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market10 Aug 2026
Sparta Prague spend $3.4M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.4M has been paid because Michal Kohút is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Ionut Marin arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ionut Marin has, at Sparta Prague, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
No deal for Iker Álvarez at that price
Sparta Prague offered $4.1M; Córdoba 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
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Sparta Prague have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $430.0K — a club that wants Patrick Kpozo enough to be asked twice.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andy Irving and Sparta Prague agree another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Ianis Bancu, whose 5 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match1 Aug 2026
14‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad3 Aug 2026
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Sergiu Burca takes the afternoon — 8.18
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sergiu Burca provided it, and the 8.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Ciprian Maxim, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Ovidiu Hagi, 33, rolls back the years — 8.03
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.03 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
An offer of $1.5M for Vlad Nita
Pandurii have gone to Astra 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
Ianis Bancu 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 Pandurii hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.