Marked for Markus Baumgartner
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Oct 2040
Markus Baumgartner damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Player ratings8 Oct 2040
Thomas Posch, 36, rolls back the years — 7.92
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad8 Oct 2040
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Thomas Posch and Mattersburg agree another 2 years.
Match6 Oct 2040
No end in sight to Mattersburg's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Mattersburg has to find a result from somewhere.
Match6 Oct 2040
2‑3 to Rapid Wien, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad8 Oct 2040
“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 Mattersburg know it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces1 Oct 2040
Anger at Mattersburg 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.
Squad1 Oct 2040
Markus Baumgartner damages knee ligaments — 30 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Squad1 Oct 2040
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Mattersburg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match29 Sep 2040
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Mattersburg and Red Bull Salzburg in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match29 Sep 2040
Red Bull Salzburg left with the points after a 2‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad1 Oct 2040
Rafael Lopes 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom25 Jun 2040
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Mattersburg
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad25 Jun 2040
Marko Trimmel breaks a bone — 81 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Jun 2040
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Mattersburg will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom28 May 2040
Pressure builds in the Mattersburg boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad28 May 2040
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 66 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 May 2040
Words at Mattersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafael Lopes 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.