The words a physio says slowly. 75 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Philipp Pomer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at SV Ried 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at SV Ried that is a harder question to answer.
In brief
The dugoutLuka Capan asks for a word with the manager
124 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SV Ried lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Andreas Leitner 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Yusuf Maart 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 mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; SV Ried are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I watch every SV Ried game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Wolfsberger AC runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Kingstone Mutandwa is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Red Bull Salzburg go through and SV Ried go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Andreas Leitner and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Yusuf Maart 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.
7 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at SV Ried 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason SV Ried will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SV Ried this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at SV Ried training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Maart 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 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 Sandro Ingolitsch is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 101 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Andreas Leitner 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.
SV Ried asked and ENPPI said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Philipp Pomer 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.
“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 SV Ried, and 5 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at SV Ried 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.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Michael Sollbauer may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at SV Ried, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation SV Ried are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
0‑1 against FF Jaro, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Andreas Leitner 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at SV Ried training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Maart 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Kingstone Mutandwa.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Marcel Baumgartner to a room that had heard them before.
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.
“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 SV Ried, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ante Bajić 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Romeo Vučić 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.
Marked 8.31 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.