Nobody at Bayer Leverkusen 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Patrik Schick signs something — a contract at Bayer Leverkusen or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Bayer Leverkusen would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against SC Freiburg in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“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 Bayer Leverkusen will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Hamburger SV will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Bayer Leverkusen were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Successful dribbles: 32. 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Bayer Leverkusen and Heerenveen, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Facundo Medina and Bayer Leverkusen agree another 5 years.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ernest Poku 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.
“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 Bayer Leverkusen, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bayer Leverkusen people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 17 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mark Flekken and Bayer Leverkusen agree another 2 years.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marco Asensio 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.
Victor Boniface 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.
“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 Bayer Leverkusen, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Edmond Tapsoba was one of the reasons people came, and $75.1M does not replace that by itself.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.98 for the rest of it.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jarell Quansah scored, was marked 7.95, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Facundo Medina wants continental football; whether Bayer Leverkusen can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hannover 96 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bayer Leverkusen is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Bayer Leverkusen have paid $22.7M for Marco Asensio, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marco Asensio has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
Loïc Badé and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Marco Asensio 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. SC Freiburg have kept their man, and Bayer Leverkusen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
19 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.
“I did not go to Eintracht Braunschweig to sit and watch. I want to come back to Bayer Leverkusen and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
The words a physio says slowly. 122 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.
Aleix García 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: Malik Tillman. 3‑2 against Borussia Mönchengladbach, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The goal that put Borussia Mönchengladbach ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Bayer Leverkusen equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
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 Patrik Schick is on it.
138 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bayer Leverkusen lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Loïc Badé 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Bayer Leverkusen can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jonas Schmidt after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Player ratingsThe cruellest goal, and it is Jonas Hofmann's
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayer Leverkusen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
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.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Martin Terrier was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.22. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayer Leverkusen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Loïc Badé is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Bayer Leverkusen know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
7 goals in 29 games at Besiktas — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Bayer Leverkusen updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mark Flekken’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Bayer Leverkusen needing him to play as if none of it matters.
59 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Bayer Leverkusen. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 18 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburger SV in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Bayer Leverkusen know it.
Marked 8.45 — 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.
Nothing signed, nothing denied, and a lot of people suddenly very careful about their wording. Supporters who have been through one of these know the quiet part lasts months.
1 for Robert Andrich, marked 7.85, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Bayer Leverkusen know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayer Leverkusen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Karim Benzema and Bayer Leverkusen agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
A 2‑1 win over Werder Bremen, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
7.95, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Bayer Leverkusen had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout8 Mar 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.” Jonas Schmidt kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“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 Bayer Leverkusen hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Bayer Leverkusen can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loïc Badé 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 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Leon Lehmann has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Robert Lang is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bayer Leverkusen can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. VfL Wolfsburg have kept their man, and Bayer Leverkusen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kaishu Sano 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 Miguel Gutiérrez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$29.3M on the table at RB Leipzig. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The chase for Valentin Gendrey ended with $15.5M changing hands and TSG Hoffenheim out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. TSG Hoffenheim have kept their man, and Bayer Leverkusen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Valentin Gendrey has, at Bayer Leverkusen, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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 dugout18 Jan 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Jonas Schmidt to a room that had heard them before.
Christian Kofane, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.55
A mark of 8.55 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Patrik Schick 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 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Eliesse Ben Seghir 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.
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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Kaishu Sano was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
It needed Karim Benzema to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Eintracht Frankfurt, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
At 21 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Kaishu Sano 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 had been thinking. Miguel Gutiérrez 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.
“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 Bayer Leverkusen hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Patrik Schick 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.
With 6 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Jonas Schmidt left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayer Leverkusen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.98, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
5 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.