“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sturm Graz can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Andreas Weimann will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sturm Graz the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Jon Gorenc Stankovič 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pietro Reggiori and Sturm Graz agree another 4 years.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leon Grgić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sturm Graz have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Otar Kiteishvili 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Albert Vallci signs something — a contract at Sturm Graz or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Guilherme Cardoso arrives at Sturm Graz with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sturm Graz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.22 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sturm Graz have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sturm Graz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Seedy Jatta 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.