Marked for Joachim Cornelius
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Transfer targets30 Jan 2034
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Midtjylland have done the hard part with FC Copenhagen, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets30 Jan 2034
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Silkeborg is saying, and nobody at FC Midtjylland is enjoying the guessing.
Market30 Jan 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market30 Jan 2034
“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.
Squad30 Jan 2034
Words at FC Midtjylland training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filip Oprea 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.
Transfer targets30 Jan 2034
FC Midtjylland asked and FC Nordsjaelland said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom30 Jan 2034
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Squad30 Jan 2034
Clemente Perotti and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market9 Jan 2034
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FC Nordsjaelland waiting with a shirt. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match4 Jan 2034
Silkeborg are out and FC Midtjylland go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match4 Jan 2034
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. FC Midtjylland scored in the 94th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Match9 Jan 2034
41 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.
Market9 Jan 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market9 Jan 2034
The bid was some way short and FC Midtjylland did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom9 Jan 2034
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.
Squad9 Jan 2034
Kristian Arnstad 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market26 Sep 2033
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad26 Sep 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Midtjylland this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Sep 2033
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Squad26 Sep 2033
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Niklas Jensen Wassberg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match24 Sep 2033
Esbjerg left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match24 Sep 2033
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Market26 Sep 2033
Rasmus Falk is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at FC Midtjylland has been clear about where Rasmus Falk stands, which is more than many ever get.
Boardroom26 Sep 2033
Nobody left the FC Midtjylland 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.
The dugout26 Sep 2033
Mark Reid faces the questions
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mark Reid after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces12 Sep 2033
The mood at FC Midtjylland has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market12 Sep 2033
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Midtjylland can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Sep 2033
Position 2 and 13 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market12 Sep 2033
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings12 Sep 2033
At 37 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.01, and nobody on the pitch better.
The dugout12 Sep 2033
“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.
Match10 Sep 2033
Nobody wants to play FC Midtjylland right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Boardroom12 Sep 2033
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.
Squad12 Sep 2033
Niklas Jensen Wassberg 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market29 Aug 2033
“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.
Player ratings29 Aug 2033
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market29 Aug 2033
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Midtjylland they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad29 Aug 2033
Karel Pojezný falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Match27 Aug 2033
A 1‑0 win over Vejle, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad29 Aug 2033
Hamdi Labidi 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 dugout29 Aug 2033
The manager makes an example of Malte Heyde
“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.
The dugout29 Aug 2033
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Midtjylland, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout29 Aug 2033
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces15 Aug 2033
Anger at FC Midtjylland spills outside the ground
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.
Squad15 Aug 2033
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Midtjylland lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market15 Aug 2033
Only the photograph left for Ousmane Diao
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ousmane Diao will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Midtjylland the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market15 Aug 2033
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Aarhus Fremad waiting with a shirt. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom15 Aug 2033
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $9.1K of what FC Midtjylland paid for Alfred Gøthler is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Squad15 Aug 2033
Kristian Arnstad 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.
Market15 Aug 2033
AC Horsens pay $310.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad15 Aug 2033
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Karel Pojezný was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match13 Aug 2033
HB Køge left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Aug 2033
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Midtjylland lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market1 Aug 2033
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Midtjylland can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Aug 2033
9 seasons and 313 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Market1 Aug 2033
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joachim Cornelius will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Midtjylland the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad1 Aug 2033
Callum O'Hare 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.
Squad1 Aug 2033
Words at FC Midtjylland training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karel Pojezný 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 dugout1 Aug 2033
The manager makes an example of Karel Pojezný
“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.
Match30 Jul 2033
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings1 Aug 2033
Marked 7.36 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
The arithmetic is finished and so is the season. A hard summer starts early, and next year’s fixture list will read like a different sport.
Market4 Jul 2033
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FC Nordsjaelland waiting with a shirt. Nobody at FC Midtjylland is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at FC Midtjylland is running low.
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
Interim Coach has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at FC Midtjylland can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market4 Jul 2033
Karel Pojezný hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Midtjylland can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Jul 2033
Ilyas Kacen breaks a bone — 40 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market4 Jul 2033
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market4 Jul 2033
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Midtjylland they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad4 Jul 2033
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FC Midtjylland can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market16 May 2033
Only the photograph left for Ethan Wheatley
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ethan Wheatley will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Midtjylland the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market16 May 2033
“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.
Squad16 May 2033
Karel Pojezný falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad16 May 2033
Axel Kouamé 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.
Squad16 May 2033
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and FC Midtjylland know it.
Boardroom16 May 2033
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad16 May 2033
FC Midtjylland are still strangers to each other
15 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.
Loan watch16 May 2033
“I watch every FC Midtjylland game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at AC Horsens runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout16 May 2033
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Midtjylland, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market24 Jan 2033
Ethan Wheatley has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Midtjylland they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market24 Jan 2033
“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 FC Midtjylland, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom24 Jan 2033
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.
Squad24 Jan 2033
Callum O'Hare 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.
Market24 Jan 2033
Brondby paid $690.0K and FC Midtjylland took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad24 Jan 2033
A move Mateja Radonjić would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mateja Radonjić is living that version at FC Midtjylland, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad24 Jan 2033
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Karel Pojezný was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Jan 2033
Hamdi Labidi 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.
Boardroom24 Jan 2033
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Jan 2033
20 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match5 Jan 2033
OB go through and FC Midtjylland go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Market10 Jan 2033
Brondby come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and FC Midtjylland did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Jan 2033
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marko Veličković will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Midtjylland the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market10 Jan 2033
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Midtjylland people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market10 Jan 2033
“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 FC Midtjylland, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom10 Jan 2033
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.
Squad10 Jan 2033
Jacob Widell Zetterström 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.
Squad10 Jan 2033
Milan Mutsers gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Milan Mutsers has just signed for FC Midtjylland, and for once the answer mattered.