16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Augsburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
6 goals in one match, Simon Schierack on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Augsburg and RB Leipzig.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Richard Schröder and FC Augsburg agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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; FC Augsburg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom11 Jan 2044
Nobody left the FC Augsburg 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.
Thomas Heinrich is 20, and FC Augsburg 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kerim Alajbegović and FC Augsburg agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Augsburg heard it as anything else.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Augsburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Player ratings28 Dec 2043
A brace, and Stipe Vlasic takes the afternoon — 8.47
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Stipe Vlasic provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
10 goals in one match, Stipe Vlasic on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Augsburg and Bayern Munich.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Simon Schierack and FC Augsburg agree another 1 years.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
20 goals and a season average of 7.34. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad21 Dec 2043
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nathaniel Brown 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 words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Stipe Vlasic will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at FC Augsburg escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
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.
57 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Augsburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
Squad7 Dec 2043
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nathaniel Brown 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.