Marked for Stephan Thomas
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Aug 2040
The words a physio says slowly. 52 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.
Squad27 Aug 2040
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match25 Aug 2040
No end in sight to Heidenheim's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Heidenheim has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings27 Aug 2040
Jamie Schuldes, 33, rolls back the years — 8.05
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad27 Aug 2040
Fabiano Rust 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 Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Aug 2040
Stephan Thomas is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Boardroom27 Aug 2040
10 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market27 Aug 2040
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Oliver Arnold is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market27 Aug 2040
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Uwe Winter has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Jul 2040
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Heidenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces9 Jul 2040
The mood at Heidenheim 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.
Squad9 Jul 2040
A fracture rules René Winter out for 58 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heidenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad9 Jul 2040
“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.
Squad9 Jul 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Heidenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market9 Jul 2040
Stephan Thomas is 18, and Heidenheim have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Aug 2039
A fracture rules Altay Bayındır out for 79 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason TSG Hoffenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 Aug 2039
“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.
Squad1 Aug 2039
Adam Hložek 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 TSG Hoffenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Aug 2039
Albian Hajdari 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.
Market1 Aug 2039
“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.
Market1 Aug 2039
Only the photograph left for Robert Weiß
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Robert Weiß will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around TSG Hoffenheim the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Jul 2039
The bid was some way short and TSG Hoffenheim did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad18 Jul 2039
A fracture rules Altay Bayındır out for 93 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason TSG Hoffenheim will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market18 Jul 2039
“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.
Market18 Jul 2039
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at TSG Hoffenheim is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad18 Jul 2039
Adam Hložek 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 TSG Hoffenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jul 2039
Patrick Wimmer 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
Steady
Squad4 Jul 2039
A knee injury of the worst kind for Fernando Dickes
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. TSG Hoffenheim lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad4 Jul 2039
357 appearances across 12 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and TSG Hoffenheim know what they have.
Market4 Jul 2039
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at TSG Hoffenheim heard it as anything else.
Squad4 Jul 2039
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Albian Hajdari and TSG Hoffenheim agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Jul 2039
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at TSG Hoffenheim this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market4 Jul 2039
Only the photograph left for Lukas Skov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lukas Skov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around TSG Hoffenheim the goodbyes have quietly begun.