22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bayer Leverkusen lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bayer Leverkusen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayer Leverkusen heard it as anything else.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.98 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bayer Leverkusen and Greuther Fürth in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
He is 23 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.
Guéla Doué 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
SquadWords at Bayer Leverkusen training over how hard people work
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Edmond Tapsoba
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Karl Wolf kept it short after the 3‑2 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Loïc Badé signs something — a contract at Bayer Leverkusen or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 Bayer Leverkusen, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Bayer Leverkusen can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Work is signed off on a capacity of 41757. It is the sort of decision a club is judged on twenty years later, by people who were not there when it was taken.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Andreas Meyer and Bayer Leverkusen agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Patrik Schick’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Bayer Leverkusen needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Martin Terrier signs something — a contract at Bayer Leverkusen or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Bayer Leverkusen has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
The dugoutAndreas Meyer knocks on the manager's door
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Hákon Rafn Valdimarsson comes from Brentford for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Hákon Rafn Valdimarsson has, at Bayer Leverkusen, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Chelsea have kept their man, and Bayer Leverkusen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Janis Blaswich has his answer from Bayer Leverkusen; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Bayer Leverkusen would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Miguel Gutiérrez signs something — a contract at Bayer Leverkusen or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Bayer Leverkusen have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.