The words a physio says slowly. 104 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 chase for Oliver Rölke ended with $2.4M changing hands and Hertha BSC out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Karlsruher SC offered $1.0M; Hannover 96 said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Karlsruher SC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Eintracht Frankfurt have kept their man, and Karlsruher SC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Herold was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Karlsruher SC are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Albion Ademi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Karlsruher SC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ludovit Reis 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Karlsruher SC. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and David Herold trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Karlsruher SC the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Giannis Konstantelias has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Fabio Fehr 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Mattias Käit 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 never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Thun, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Furkan Dursun did not need any: 8.45, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 7 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Mattias Käit 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Thun and Rapid Bucharest, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabio Fehr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Thun can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olimpia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Thun asked and Rapid Wien said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabio Fehr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad31 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Thun are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Winterthur? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
In brief
The dugoutJustin Roth has become a man the manager trusts