The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Köln people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 The request is on a desk at Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.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 Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Bayer Leverkusen will make the call about Jan Thielmann this week. Köln have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Ellyes Skhiri 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
At 23 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Källman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Étienne Borié is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Martinelli 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Bayer Leverkusen next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Martinelli has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Källman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Martinelli 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 Benjamin Källman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Martinelli 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: James Maddison. 2‑0 against Union Berlin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin Källman 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutMartinelli asks for a word with the manager
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Hans Braun could afford to be generous.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
In brief
The dugoutMartinelli left out for tactical reasons at Köln
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. James Maddison provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln heard it as anything else.
Martinelli 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.
Minute 91, against Bayern Munich, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Köln told Linton Maina something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
The deal that would have taken Dominic Calvert-Lewin to Bayern Munich has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Köln with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Källman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Martinelli 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
Köln may not be able to give Tom Krauß what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Tom Krauß wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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. Southampton have kept their man, and Köln go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Källman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 16 and 29 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
72 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout24 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Marvin Schwäbe'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 Köln 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 Dominic Calvert-Lewin signs something — a contract at Köln or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gerardo Arteaga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Position 16 on 29 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Köln will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Marvin Schwäbe knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout17 May 2027
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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Philipp Koch to a room that had heard them before.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Köln will not try tonight.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Köln can tell you which week it ends in.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Alessio Castro-Montes will call it something else in private.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Borna Sosa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Linton Maina is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Köln. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A side in position 12 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Köln the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Köln told Raphaël Guerreiro something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Gideon Mensah will call it something else in private.
6 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.
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 Marius Bülter is on it.
The phone has started ringing about Marvin Schwäbe again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Moscow. Köln are listening politely and promising nothing.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tom Krauß scored, was marked 7.50, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
6 goals in one match, Dominic Calvert-Lewin on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Köln and Bayern Munich.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Borna Sosa 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Radomiak Radom had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Luca Kerber comes from Heidenheim for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Köln close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dominic Calvert-Lewin provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Köln and Hertha BSC have settled on $1.4M. 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.
$2.8M was the most the club would pay and TSG Hoffenheim were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Köln offered $16.7M; Bayer Leverkusen 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.
The offer went to TSG Hoffenheim 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Köln have gone to SC Freiburg with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$16.4M on the table at Monterrey. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Köln have gone to Bayer Leverkusen with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
$4.7M on the table at TSG Hoffenheim. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The phone has started ringing about Marvin Schwäbe again, and this time the name on the line is VfB Stuttgart. Köln are listening politely and promising nothing.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Niklas Dorsch delivers — 7.97
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Niklas Dorsch scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Marvin Schwäbe has his answer from Köln; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Borna Sosa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Philipp Koch after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Borna Sosa 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Philipp Koch after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Something was said to Sikou Niakaté and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Philipp Koch after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Cote 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 ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Philipp Koch was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Köln dressing room was either.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against FC Augsburg in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Tom Krauß could not do
Derby days make names, and Marius Bülter made his against Borussia Mönchengladbach. 2‑1, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Köln supporters have already started telling it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Malek El Mala is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Matthias Köbbing 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.
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 Köln 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.
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.
Dominik Kother 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 shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Köln that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Philipp Koch left the room before anybody could ask which.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Köln have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Mainz 05 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Köln is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
TSG Hoffenheim paid $19.6M and Köln took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thijs Dallinga provided it, and the 8.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Ísak Jóhannesson has gone, the accounts have $19.6M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $20.5M for Sikou Niakaté, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
A 3‑1 win over VfL Wolfsburg, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Ellyes Skhiri 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 keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Köln, another week without a signature from Gideon Mensah.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, and both men came out saying it was fine.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.