Jamie Leweling 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 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.
Jamie Leweling 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.
“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.
Jamie Leweling 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.
“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.
The name of Deniz Undav has come up in conversations VfB Stuttgart were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Chema Andrés trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The terracesThe stands have heard the Deniz Undav talk too
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
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.
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.
Shots: 13. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Jamie Leweling 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Ramon Hendriks will call it something else in private.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at VfB Stuttgart hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
Marked 9.06 — 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.
“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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
107% of the income goes out in wages at VfB Stuttgart
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
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.
“I watch every VfB Stuttgart game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at St. Pauli runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
RB Leipzig paid $8.7M and VfB Stuttgart took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Deniz Undav 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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Ramon Hendriks’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.