Marked for Philipp Krämer
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Aug 2041
A fracture rules Philipp Krämer out for 17 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason VfB Stuttgart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market5 Aug 2041
Mees Denee has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around VfB Stuttgart they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad5 Aug 2041
Angelo Stiller 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.
Market5 Aug 2041
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at VfB Stuttgart heard it as anything else.
Squad5 Aug 2041
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Till Neininger commits to VfB Stuttgart for another 2 years.
Squad5 Aug 2041
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Jul 2041
A fracture rules Philipp Krämer out for 26 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason VfB Stuttgart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market29 Jul 2041
Rui Mendes has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around VfB Stuttgart they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom29 Jul 2041
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Mees Denee has agreed terms with SC Freiburg for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad29 Jul 2041
Bilal El Khannouss 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.
Squad29 Jul 2041
The medical room confirms 27 days on the sidelines for Tim Günther, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market29 Jul 2041
Heidenheim are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. VfB Stuttgart will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Jul 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad22 Jul 2041
Angelo Stiller 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.
Market22 Jul 2041
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. VfB Stuttgart will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad22 Jul 2041
Angelo Stiller has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at VfB Stuttgart 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.
Market22 Jul 2041
5 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what VfB Stuttgart could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Jul 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad15 Jul 2041
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angelo Stiller 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 Jul 2041
Klaus Pohl in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at VfB Stuttgart this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Jul 2041
The medical room confirms 16 days on the sidelines for Felix Simon, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market15 Jul 2041
Ianis Cicaldau is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at VfB Stuttgart has been clear about where Ianis Cicaldau stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Jul 2041
Leon Hoffmann damages knee ligaments — 19 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Squad8 Jul 2041
A fracture rules Philipp Krämer out for 49 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason VfB Stuttgart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad8 Jul 2041
91 appearances across 15 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market8 Jul 2041
Only the photograph left for Samuel Moreira
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samuel Moreira will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around VfB Stuttgart the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad8 Jul 2041
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Max Rosenfelder 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.
Boardroom8 Jul 2041
VfB Stuttgart sign 11 boys into the academy
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Jul 2041
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leon Hoffmann
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. VfB Stuttgart lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad1 Jul 2041
A fracture rules Philipp Krämer out for 56 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason VfB Stuttgart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 Jul 2041
91 appearances across 15 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and VfB Stuttgart know what they have.
Market1 Jul 2041
Heidenheim come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and VfB Stuttgart did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market1 Jul 2041
Ralf Winter 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 VfB Stuttgart can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Jul 2041
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angelo Stiller 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.