The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Grasshopper people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Grasshopper is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nassim Ben Khalifa has agreed terms with Sion for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Mattia Zanotti 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Grasshopper training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomás Verón Lupi 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.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jaroslav Navrátil will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Grasshopper the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Mattia Zanotti 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.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Grasshopper, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Grasshopper is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Mattia Zanotti 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.
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 is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Grasshopper are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
72 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Grasshopper lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
11 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Sion were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Grasshopper is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Mattia Zanotti 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 Grasshopper and Sion, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Three points for Grasshopper, 4‑2 the final word against Sion in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Michaël Frey 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.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Grasshopper will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Angers SCO had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Sion have accepted the money. What Grasshopper do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Grasshopper this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Óscar Clemente's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Nobody at Grasshopper 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Justin Hammel signs something — a contract at Grasshopper or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Grasshopper have no good answer.
Maximilian Ullmann and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Grasshopper training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zanotti 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
Maximilian Ullmann 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Grasshopper training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mattia Zanotti 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 watch every Grasshopper game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Zurich runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Grasshopper can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Mattia Zanotti 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Grasshopper training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdoulaye Diaby 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.
5 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.
Nobody at Grasshopper 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Grasshopper have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Mattia Zanotti and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Grasshopper training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin Santelli 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Grasshopper know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.