Marked for Marcel Baumgartner
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Jul 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad28 Jul 2042
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad28 Jul 2042
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marcel Baumgartner is living that version at Valerenga, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad28 Jul 2042
Words at Valerenga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bogdan Stanciu 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.
Match26 Jul 2042
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tomás Müller. 1‑0 against Aalesund, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings28 Jul 2042
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Market28 Jul 2042
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Christos Karanatsios has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Valerenga.
Player ratings28 Jul 2042
The afternoon belonged to Tomás Müller
A mark of 7.75, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Market28 Jul 2042
Odd are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Valerenga will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom18 Mar 2041
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Dinamo Barnaul
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market18 Mar 2041
Lamine Kaba 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 Dinamo Barnaul can pretend not to have heard.
Market18 Mar 2041
Lamine Kaba has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Barnaul they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad18 Mar 2041
Mario Ljevar 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 Dinamo Barnaul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Mar 2041
Words at Dinamo Barnaul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Ananjin 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.
Squad18 Mar 2041
The manager has not finished forgetting Andrey Kulagin'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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Feb 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom4 Feb 2041
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Andrei Zyuzin has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom4 Feb 2041
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market4 Feb 2041
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Barnaul can pretend not to have heard.
Market4 Feb 2041
The offer from Metallurg for Marcel 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.
Squad4 Feb 2041
“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; Dinamo Barnaul are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad4 Feb 2041
Lamine Kaba 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 Dinamo Barnaul this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Feb 2041
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ersin Aydemir commits to Dinamo Barnaul for another 2 years.
Boardroom4 Feb 2041
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces28 Jan 2041
The mood at Dinamo Barnaul has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad28 Jan 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market28 Jan 2041
Eli Reynolds 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 Dinamo Barnaul can pretend not to have heard.
Squad28 Jan 2041
Lamine Kaba 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.
Squad28 Jan 2041
Words at Dinamo Barnaul training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Ljevar 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.