The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Assan Ouédraogo did not need any: 8.51, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
Marked 9.07 — 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.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.84 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Niklas Lomb has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Niklas Lomb will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bayer Leverkusen the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gustavo Blanco has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
Marked 9.36 — 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.
Marked 9.34 — 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Assan Ouédraogo did not need any: 8.77, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Assan Ouédraogo 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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Nathan Tella
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.
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.
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jean-Mattéo Bahoya did not need any: 8.20, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tiago Tomás has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jean-Mattéo Bahoya has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Marked 8.88 — 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.
At 22 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The chase for Connor Metcalfe ended with $4.0M changing hands and St. Pauli out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Connor Metcalfe has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
Add another name to the list: VfB Stuttgart have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jonas Hofmann. The answer from Bayer Leverkusen has not changed — yet.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Bayer Leverkusen will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bayer Leverkusen has to find a result from somewhere.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The phone has started ringing about Afonso Moreira again, and this time the name on the line is Werder Bremen. Bayer Leverkusen are listening politely and promising nothing.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bayer Leverkusen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bayer Leverkusen has to find a result from somewhere.
Exequiel Palacios 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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. 52 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bayer Leverkusen have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 34 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
31 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bayer Leverkusen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayer Leverkusen heard it as anything else.
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.
Marked 8.69. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Bayer Leverkusen.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Malik Tillman was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. 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 Nathan Tella 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.
Shots: 14. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 77 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.48 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Marked 8.15 — 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.29 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Marked 9.38 — 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen 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 Bayer Leverkusen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Bayer Leverkusen $450.0K. Eliesse Ben Seghir left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 113 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There were 7 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Gift Lorch, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 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 8.26 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Loïc Badé was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.66. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Gift Lorch 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Loïc Badé is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Loïc Badé
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bayer Leverkusen has to find a result from somewhere.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Bayer Leverkusen can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bayer Leverkusen has to find a result from somewhere.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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.
Marked 9.10 — 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.
Nobody at Bayer Leverkusen 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Bayer Leverkusen have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Victor Boniface’s exile
The terracesThe press have found their man in Loïc Badé
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 31 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
5 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Afonso Moreira is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayer Leverkusen heard it as anything else.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Malik Tillman has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Nothing has been signed and nothing has been denied. Supporters who have lived through one of these before know the quiet part lasts months and the loud part lasts a week.
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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
“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.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jannes Wieckhoff is living that version at Bayer Leverkusen, and it tends to show in the first month.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Afonso Moreira, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.06
A mark of 8.06 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Afonso Moreira 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Malik Tillman at his very best
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Martin Terrier's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 37 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayer Leverkusen heard it as anything else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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 club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bayer Leverkusen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gift Lorch has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Marked 9.24 — 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Loïc Badé. 2‑1 against RB Leipzig, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Malik Tillman was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.02. 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.
At 22 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Patrik Schick could not do
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Friedrich Jäger 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ralf Meyer 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.
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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Malik Tillman has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Exequiel Palacios and Bayer Leverkusen agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stefan Lienhart has just signed for Bayer Leverkusen, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Exequiel Palacios 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bayer Leverkusen heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lucas Vázquez and Bayer Leverkusen agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nathan Tella signs something — a contract at Bayer Leverkusen or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.