Marked for Marcel Baumgartner
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Apr 2029
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rapid Wien will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Words at Rapid Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Serge-Philippe Raux-Yao 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.
Squad30 Apr 2029
Amar Hadžimuratović and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
Ammar Helac gets it from the manager
“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.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
Matthias Seidl has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rapid Wien will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout30 Apr 2029
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market30 Apr 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Furkan Demir’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Match30 Apr 2029
Continental football is in reach for Rapid Wien
35 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
Market30 Apr 2029
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Serge-Philippe Raux-Yao may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Feb 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market19 Feb 2029
Stjarnan come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Rapid Wien did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Amar Hadžimuratović 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.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Words at Rapid Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Serge-Philippe Raux-Yao 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 dugout19 Feb 2029
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Rapid Wien told Oliver Strunz something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Rapid Wien 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.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
Niklas Hedl gets picked when it counts
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 Niklas Hedl is on it.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
Furkan Demir knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rapid Wien, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Apr 2028
Amīn-Elias Gröller 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 dugout10 Apr 2028
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.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
Ange Ahoussou 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 Ange Ahoussou trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market10 Apr 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matthias Seidl signs something — a contract at Rapid Wien or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market10 Apr 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rapid Wien, another week without a signature from Ammar Helac.