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.
“I watch every St. Gallen game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sion runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Gallen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Benjamin Kololli arrives from Sion with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Antonio Verinac 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 shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
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.
Lukas Görtler 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at St. Gallen can tell you which week it ends in.
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 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at St. Gallen can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” St. Gallen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lukas Görtler 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.
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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Lugano defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Remco Balk scored in the 89th minute, Sion had already begun thinking about the journey home, and St. Gallen took the lot.
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.
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.
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.
Nobody at St. Gallen 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.
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 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Remco Balk has just signed for St. Gallen, and for once the answer mattered.
The offer from Thun for Betim Fazliji 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.
Lukas Görtler 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.
Basel paid $660.0K and St. Gallen took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. St. Gallen deserved better, and so did he.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Gallen, and both men came out saying it was fine.