The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayern Munich have kept their man, and St. Pauli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fisnik Asllani signs something — a contract at St. Pauli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Nobody at St. Pauli 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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at St. Pauli would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hertha BSC waiting with a shirt. Nobody at St. Pauli is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. St. Pauli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Pauli can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to VfB Stuttgart this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
St. Pauli and Karlsruher SC have settled on $700.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Gift Orban 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.
Janis Blaswich 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mathias Pereira Lage was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
21 games, 0 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at St. Pauli now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Something was said to Jannik Rochelt and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The loan was meant to give him football. 4 games and 0 goals later he is back at St. Pauli no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rony Jansson is on it.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. St. Pauli will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fisnik Asllani wants continental football; whether St. Pauli can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Benedict Hollerbach 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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The offer went to Hamburger SV this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The clubs have shaken hands with TSG Hoffenheim; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer from Eintracht Braunschweig for Benedict Hollerbach 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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“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 St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
The offer went to Preußen Münster this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
St. Pauli asked and Dynamo Dresden said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Guéla Doué and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout24 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Heinrich Groß to a room that had heard them before.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at St. Pauli pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Every touch weighed, every quote parsed, every mistake replayed. Some players grow into that; some are quietly finished by it; nobody knows which until afterwards.
“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 St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Guéla Doué 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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether St. Pauli can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andreas Schjelderup was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Karol Mets.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Heinrich Groß was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the St. Pauli dressing room was either.
6 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at St. Pauli heard it as anything else.
Guéla Doué and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andreas Schjelderup 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.
Something was said to Guéla Doué and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
$580.0K settles it between the clubs for Felix Higl
Greuther Fürth have accepted the money. What St. Pauli do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Guéla Doué and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Andreas Schjelderup 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.
Marked 8.38 — 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.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Heinrich Groß, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
Player ratingsTiago Tomás beats them one at a time
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Pauli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andreas Schjelderup 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.
“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 St. Pauli know it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Pauli can pretend not to have heard.
Benedict Hollerbach 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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 St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; St. Pauli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and King Manu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 St. Pauli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Guéla Doué 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zidan Sertdemir was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. St. Pauli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutBen Voll asks for a word with the manager
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Pauli can pretend not to have heard.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Benedict Hollerbach and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andreas Schjelderup was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Köln scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.