Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Andrej Kostić is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sparta Prague. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Prague this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sparta Prague know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Josimar Alcócer has written the date down.
Jakub Martinec has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jakub Martinec will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sparta Prague the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sparta Prague know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Sparta Prague the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Prague they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Sparta Prague can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“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 Sparta Prague know it.
Chancel Mbemba 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.
Position 18 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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 1‑2 Kevin Thomas left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Adrian Beck is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mainz 05 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
He is 21 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.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Heidenheim have done the hard part with Venezia, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Nicolas Höfler 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.
Heidenheim asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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 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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
$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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.