Marked for Florian Baumgartner
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market15 Jan 2046
Sturm Graz come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Austria Wien did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad15 Jan 2046
Jeroen De Ligt has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Austria 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.
Squad15 Jan 2046
Words at Austria Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joao Sousa 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.
Squad15 Jan 2046
Manuel Caballero asks for a word with the manager
“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.
Squad15 Jan 2046
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Austria Wien would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market15 Jan 2046
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Florian Baumgartner may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Nov 2045
Austria Wien do the business in Europe
1‑0. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Austria Wien came through the finding-out well against Sion.
Match11 Nov 2045
1‑2 to Red Bull Salzburg, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings13 Nov 2045
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Nov 2045
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.
Squad13 Nov 2045
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Florian Baumgartner, and the manager let it.
Squad13 Nov 2045
Words at Austria Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcel Kalajdzic 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.
Player ratings13 Nov 2045
13 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.
Player ratings13 Nov 2045
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad13 Nov 2045
Getting past Peter Posch has become the hardest job in the division
5 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom29 May 2045
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Market29 May 2045
Jeroen De Ligt has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Austria Wien they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom29 May 2045
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad29 May 2045
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marcel Kalajdzic has just signed for Austria Wien, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad29 May 2045
20 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Market29 May 2045
He is 20, and nobody at Austria Wien signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Market29 May 2045
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad29 May 2045
Nobody at Austria 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad13 Mar 2045
A fracture rules Sanel Šaljić out for 77 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Austria Wien will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom13 Mar 2045
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Dario Baldi made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
Squad13 Mar 2045
“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.
Market13 Mar 2045
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christoph Fuchs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Austria Wien the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad13 Mar 2045
Sanel Šaljić 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.
Squad13 Mar 2045
Words at Austria Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gylfi Adalsteinsson 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Jan 2045
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michael Kalajdzic
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Austria Wien lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad30 Jan 2045
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 85 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market30 Jan 2045
SV Ried come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Austria Wien did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Jan 2045
Michael Kalajdzic damages knee ligaments — 52 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 52 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.
Squad23 Jan 2045
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Austria Wien will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market23 Jan 2045
Only the photograph left for Jeroen De Ligt
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jeroen De Ligt will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Austria Wien the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Jan 2045
Michael Kalajdzic damages knee ligaments — 61 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 61 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.
Squad16 Jan 2045
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Austria Wien will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market16 Jan 2045
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christoph Fuchs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Austria Wien the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market16 Jan 2045
Everyone has stopped pretending: SV Ried will make the call about Jeroen De Ligt this week. Austria Wien have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad16 Jan 2045
Sanel Šaljić has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Austria 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.
Squad16 Jan 2045
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gernot Lindner commits to Austria Wien for another 1 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Jan 2045
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michael Kalajdzic
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Austria Wien lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad9 Jan 2045
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad9 Jan 2045
30 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market9 Jan 2045
Grodig are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Austria Wien will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad9 Jan 2045
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gylfi Adalsteinsson and Austria Wien agree another 2 years.
Market9 Jan 2045
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Jan 2045
A knee injury of the worst kind for Michael Kalajdzic
78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Austria Wien lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad2 Jan 2045
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 121 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market2 Jan 2045
The offer from Wolfsberger AC for Peter Posch 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.
Market2 Jan 2045
“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.
Squad2 Jan 2045
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Austria Wien may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Jan 2045
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Austria Wien have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Dec 2044
Michael Kalajdzic damages knee ligaments — 86 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 86 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.
Squad26 Dec 2044
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Austria Wien will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad26 Dec 2044
Leonardo Betti: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Austria Wien have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Sep 2044
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market26 Sep 2044
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christoph Fuchs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Austria Wien the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings26 Sep 2044
A performance of 8.12 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings26 Sep 2044
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad26 Sep 2044
Words at Austria Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Philipp Lienhart 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.
Squad26 Sep 2044
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.
Match24 Sep 2044
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad26 Sep 2044
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom30 May 2044
Continental nights are coming to Austria Wien
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Squad30 May 2044
A fracture rules Sven Albrecht out for 103 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Austria Wien will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market30 May 2044
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Austria Wien is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad30 May 2044
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Valentino Ilsanker is living that version at Austria Wien, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad30 May 2044
Words at Austria Wien training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ejike Opara 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 May 2044
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Latrell Lewis commits to Austria Wien for another 1 years.