Marked for Philipp Schuck
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match20 Sep 2036
16 matches without a win for St. Pauli
The run now stands at 16, and the questions being asked around St. Pauli are no longer polite ones.
Market22 Sep 2036
“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.
Squad22 Sep 2036
A one-man rearguard from Ben Voll
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad22 Sep 2036
Philipp Schuck: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Pauli have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings22 Sep 2036
Age has not caught David Romero yet — 7.86
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad22 Sep 2036
Joel Chima Fujita 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.
Match20 Sep 2036
St. Pauli leaking at the back
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad22 Sep 2036
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arkadiusz Pyrka 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.
Match20 Sep 2036
Borussia Dortmund left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 May 2036
Joel Chima Fujita damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Match26 May 2036
St. Pauli sink to position 16
28 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market26 May 2036
Aranha hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Pauli can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 May 2036
Joel Chima Fujita 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 May 2036
Words at St. Pauli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yannick Bettkober 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.
Squad26 May 2036
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Viktor Švec commits to St. Pauli for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings15 Oct 2035
Two goals and a mark of 8.88 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Mert Kömür 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.
Squad15 Oct 2035
50 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chrislain Matsima 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.
Squad15 Oct 2035
The manager makes an example of Finn Dahmen
“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.
Match13 Oct 2035
SC Freiburg made FC Augsburg work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Market15 Oct 2035
The Mert Kömür talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. FC Augsburg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Player ratings15 Oct 2035
Shots: 7, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Player ratings15 Oct 2035
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad6 Aug 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Fabian Rieder
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Augsburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
The scrutiny sharpens at FC Augsburg
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at FC Augsburg is running low.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad6 Aug 2035
164 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market6 Aug 2035
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at FC Augsburg heard it as anything else.
Market6 Aug 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Augsburg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Alexis Claude-Maurice 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.
Market6 Aug 2035
The offer from Köln for René Graf was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad6 Aug 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Noah Andreas commits to FC Augsburg for another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Jul 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Fabian Rieder
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Augsburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market9 Jul 2035
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom9 Jul 2035
Still no name above the door at FC Augsburg
Day 38 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Mert Kömür in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Augsburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Jul 2035
Words at FC Augsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gift Orban 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.
Squad9 Jul 2035
The manager makes an example of Noah Andreas
“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.