0‑3 to Red Bull Salzburg, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
St. Pölten and Austria Wien have settled on $920.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Add another name to the list: LASK have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dušan Jovanović. The answer from St. Pölten has not changed — yet.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Pölten have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. St. Pölten have done the hard part with WSG Tirol, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Pölten this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
14 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Pölten can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from LASK for Guido Lindner 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether St. Pölten can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Austria Wien paid $320.0K and St. Pölten took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around St. Pölten people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Add another name to the list: Sturm Graz have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dušan Jovanović. The answer from St. Pölten has not changed — yet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Pölten can pretend not to have heard.
Tyrese Campbell 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.
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.
St. Pölten have made the call to Rapid Wien. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around St. Pölten they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
José Luis García 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.
Squad30 May 2033
Words at St. Pölten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyrese Campbell 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.
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.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee St. Pölten could ask drops and the wages Uroš Kojić can ask rise.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one St. Pölten will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Pölten, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dušan Jovanović will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around St. Pölten the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Pölten this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 May 2033
Words at St. Pölten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyrese Campbell 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at St. Pölten, another week without a signature from Alessandro Silvestro.
Nobody at St. Pölten 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom24 Jan 2033
The silence upstairs is getting loud at St. Pölten
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
The offer from LASK for Guido Lindner 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.
José Luis García and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Jan 2033
Words at St. Pölten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyrese Campbell 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.
Add another name to the list: Austria Klagenfurt have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Massimo Sandi. The answer from St. Pölten has not changed — yet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Pölten, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at St. Pölten is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
José Luis García 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.
Squad6 Dec 2032
Words at St. Pölten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyrese Campbell 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.