“The easiest signature of my career.” David Odogu and VfB Stuttgart agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Mar 2045
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Lara 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 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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
Player ratingsThe afternoon belonged to Michael Stein
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. VfB Stuttgart found something the first half had given no notice of, and Köln could not hold what they had.
2‑3 against Bayern Munich. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.30 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad27 Feb 2045
Pablo Lara 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Paul Busch. 4‑3 against Köln, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Klaus Pohl will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around VfB Stuttgart the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad20 Feb 2045
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobias Slotsager 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.
Patrick Braun 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.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at VfB Stuttgart is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. VfL Wolfsburg moved on, Jared Westveer reports back to VfB Stuttgart, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad13 Feb 2045
Pablo Lara 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.
Mathieu Nguefack 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.58 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Michael Stein has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Everyone has stopped pretending: SC Freiburg will make the call about Samuel Moreira this week. VfB Stuttgart have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
0‑5 to Bayern Munich, 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and VfB Stuttgart have had the benefit of 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 VfB Stuttgart, and it is not being withdrawn.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tobias Slotsager and VfB Stuttgart agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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.
Squad2 Jan 2045
Pablo Lara 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Raffaele Deimichei will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around VfB Stuttgart the goodbyes have quietly begun.
18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
“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 Dec 2044
Pablo Lara 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Michael Stein has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
16 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings21 Nov 2044
A brace, and Michael Stein takes the afternoon — 8.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Michael Stein provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” VfB Stuttgart have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Richard Fuchs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around VfB Stuttgart the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Nov 2044
Pablo Lara 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about VfB Stuttgart and Heidenheim in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Ricardo Simoes 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.
1‑0 against Mladost Lucani, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
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.
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
335 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.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.56 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at VfB Stuttgart is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
Squad31 Oct 2044
Pablo Lara 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.
Mathieu Nguefack 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at VfB Stuttgart, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. VfB Stuttgart know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Ricardo Simoes will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at VfB Stuttgart escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jared Westveer will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around VfB Stuttgart the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at VfB Stuttgart is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 Oct 2044
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Lara 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 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.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Heinrich Hofmann and VfB Stuttgart agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pablo Lara signs something — a contract at VfB Stuttgart or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
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.
Squad12 Sep 2044
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Lara 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Heidenheim will make the call about Heinrich Hofmann this week. VfB Stuttgart have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 61 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The board have signed the man in the dugout to a longer contract, which says more than any statement of support. Stability is easy to promise and costly to keep.
Squad29 Aug 2044
Words at VfB Stuttgart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pablo Lara 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.
8 goals in one match, Paul Busch on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of VfB Stuttgart and Mainz 05.
Boardroom29 Aug 2044
15 academy players handed senior numbers at VfB Stuttgart
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Heidenheim for Samuel Moreira 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.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. VfB Stuttgart will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad13 Jun 2044
David Odogu 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Michael Stein and VfB Stuttgart agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.43, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings23 Nov 2043
Michael Stein, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.93
A mark of 7.93 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
6 goals in one match, Rui Mendes on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of VfB Stuttgart and Heidenheim.
Mathieu Nguefack 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.