“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 The request is on a desk at Amstetten, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edmund Baidoo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Matthias Gragger 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Joris Boguo signs something — a contract at Amstetten or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 The request is on a desk at Amstetten, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Amstetten asked and Solin said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Yanis Eisschill 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Uljanik Pula have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
A 1‑1 draw with Kapfenberg leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout24 Jan 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Konrad Lindner was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Amstetten dressing room was either.
A season average of 7.12 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Amstetten know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Martin Moormann 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 Dal Varešanović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Jedinstvo Ub have kept their man, and Amstetten go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Anthony Schmid was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.84, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Martin Moormann 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 Dal Varešanović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad11 Oct 2027
8 new faces, and Amstetten 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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Salko Hamzić’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Amstetten needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Position 2, 18 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Anthony Schmid provided it, and the 8.57 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Edmund Baidoo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.96
A mark of 7.96 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dal Varešanović was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Amstetten will try not to make too much of it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Edmund Baidoo did not need any: 8.20, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Amstetten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edmund Baidoo 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.
Yanis Eisschill 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Amstetten is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
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.” Konrad Lindner kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Edmund Baidoo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Edmund Baidoo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Yanis Eisschill 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Anthony Schmid
Transfer targetsA loan move for Daniel Szczepan is in the works
Martin Moormann 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 Edmund Baidoo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Amstetten asked and Defensor Sporting said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Edmund Baidoo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: George Davies. 2‑0 against First Vienna, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Amstetten, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Deportes La Serena have kept their man, and Amstetten go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Still no offer on the table, and Anthony Schmid’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sturm Graz is saying, and nobody at Amstetten is enjoying the guessing.
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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Amstetten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edmund Baidoo 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.
Amstetten have made the call to Sturm Graz. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 Joris Boguo is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Amstetten, another week without a signature from Tommy Neale.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Amstetten will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Amstetten will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Amstetten will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Yanis Eisschill 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Felix Köchl 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.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Julian Turi'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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Edmund Baidoo signs something — a contract at Amstetten or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Amstetten have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julian Turi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Amstetten are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amstetten this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Martín Perisotto has just signed for Amstetten, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edmund Baidoo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Martín Perisotto and Amstetten agree another 3 years.
He is 20, and nobody at Amstetten signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Andre Grey is 20, and Amstetten have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Amstetten close the window on a squad of their own making
5 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.
Sacha Komljenović 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Edmund Baidoo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zurich have kept their man, and Amstetten go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 20 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.
$6.1M settles it between the clubs for Edmund Baidoo
Red Bull Salzburg have accepted the money. What Amstetten do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Anthony Schmid provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Amstetten, 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 Amstetten this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Laurenz Lanthaler is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Argeș have kept their man, and Amstetten go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Anthony Schmid. 2‑0 against Young Violets, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Amstetten, another week without a signature from Julian Turi.
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.
“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 Amstetten, and it is not being withdrawn.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Amstetten will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Everything agreed with Rapid Wien, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yanis Eisschill is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Add another name to the list: FAC Wien have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Luca Wimhofer. The answer from Amstetten has not changed — yet.
Sacha Komljenović 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Amstetten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felix Köchl 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amstetten this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Maximilian Scharfetter was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Martin Moormann 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 easiest signature of my career.” Michael Oberwinkler and Amstetten agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Felix Köchl 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Christopher Giuliani’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Amstetten needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutDavid Peham has become a man the manager trusts
MatchContinental football is in reach for Amstetten
Half the programme played, position 6, 24 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amstetten 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 Felix Köchl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Konrad Lindner after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Amstetten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximilian Scharfetter 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.
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 Austria Lustenau in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Felix Köchl trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Moritz Würdinger 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Amstetten training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felix Köchl 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 squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Julian Turi’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Amstetten needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Next up on the road: Kapfenberg, position 11. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
Sacha Komljenović 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Anthony Schmid. 2‑0 against Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Felix Köchl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Nobody at Amstetten 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 10 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Amstetten told Christopher Giuliani something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Felix Köchl 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
10 new faces, and Amstetten 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Amstetten this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He is 22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Felix Köchl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑2, Konrad Lindner could afford to be generous.
He is 23 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.
Moritz Würdinger 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.
10 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Konrad Lindner, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sebastian Wimmer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.