From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Borussia Dortmund did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$12.0M was the most the club would pay and VfB Stuttgart were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tom Bischof arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Tom Bischof has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Serhou Guirassy 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Borussia Dortmund asked and VfL Wolfsburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ramy Bensebaini 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Borussia Dortmund are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Borussia Dortmund, another week without a signature from Solly March.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from RB Leipzig for Maximilian Beier 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Borussia Dortmund asked and VfB Stuttgart said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Solly March arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Solly March has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Eintracht Frankfurt keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joey Veerman and Borussia Dortmund agree another 4 years.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Martin Winter is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jonas Schwarz 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Christoph Huber is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Borussia Dortmund did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
Felix Nmecha wants to know where this is going
“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 Borussia Dortmund hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nico Schlotterbeck and Borussia Dortmund agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Serhou Guirassy 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
James Rodríguez gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. James Rodríguez has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cruz Azul have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ramy Bensebaini 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Joey Veerman knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Borussia Dortmund, and both men came out saying it was fine.