A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. LASK will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The fee is $6.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Austria Lustenau drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Dynamo Dresden for Lenn Jastremski 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” LASK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Austria Klagenfurt moved on, Martin Ádám reports back to LASK, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LASK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Sascha Horvath 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.
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 Sascha Horvath is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at LASK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. LASK know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at LASK says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason LASK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Gernot Schlager on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Sanogo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at LASK 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.
“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 LASK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Red Bull Salzburg have accepted the money. What LASK do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
LASK offered $720.0K; Austria Lustenau said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LASK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.