The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Darmstadt 98 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luca Sirch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Jan Fuchs after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Greuther Fürth defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
Hiroki Akiyama 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Luca Sirch 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Darmstadt 98 told Ezechiel Banzuzi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Darmstadt 98 that is a harder question to answer.
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Darmstadt 98 lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Darmstadt 98, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Darmstadt 98 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 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.
“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; Darmstadt 98 are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Darmstadt 98 told Marvin Friedrich something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Hiroki Akiyama 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.
At 20 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Hiroki Akiyama 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 Luca Sirch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Nürnberg had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
Looking aheadThe leaders are next for Darmstadt 98
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Luca Sirch 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.
Sanoussy Ba 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.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Jan Fuchs kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Darmstadt 98 are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“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 Darmstadt 98, and it is not being withdrawn.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $19.5M — a club that wants Kaishu Sano enough to be asked twice.
The deal with RB Leipzig is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Darmstadt 98 had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Villarreal, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
$270.0K on the table at Magdeburg. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Hiroki Akiyama 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 Luca Sirch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.