Werder Bremen offered $2.0M; VfL Wolfsburg 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Marco Friedl 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrick Drewes and Werder Bremen agree another 2 years.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Werder Bremen has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Karl Hein signs something — a contract at Werder Bremen or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mitchell Weiser has written the date down.
St. Pauli did not take him to make up a number: they want him playing. For Oskar Wójcik that is worth more than another season of watching from Werder Bremen's bench, and everyone involved has said so out loud.
Serhou Guirassy 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.
Werder Bremen pay $810.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julian Ryerson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 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 Borussia Dortmund 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Svensson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 4 on 65 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
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 Borussia Dortmund have no good answer.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $9.7M has been paid because Munir is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The offer went to VfL Wolfsburg 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.
Samuel Mbangula 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 Jul 2027
Words at Werder Bremen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Friedl 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Werder Bremen will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Patrick Drewes arrives at 34 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Everything agreed with SC Freiburg, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The chase for Jonas Adjetey ended with $8.4M changing hands and VfL Wolfsburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ethan Nwaneri is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jonas Adjetey has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Serhou Guirassy 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayer Leverkusen have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Joey Veerman 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.