Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kevin Kobel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around St. Gallen the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Mar 2037
Aliou Baldé 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.
In brief
SquadAliou Baldé has become a man the manager trusts
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Carlo Boukhalfa's mistake
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at St. Gallen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Feb 2037
Aliou Baldé 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.
In brief
SquadAliou Baldé has become a man the manager trusts
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Carlo Boukhalfa's mistake
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at St. Gallen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jozo Stanić 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.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Malamine Efekele 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 133 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 53 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.82 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 St. Gallen hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at St. Gallen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 May 2036
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aliou Baldé 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.
Carlo Boukhalfa 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.
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aliou Baldé 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.
Carlo Boukhalfa 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.
Nobody at St. Gallen 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.