Borussia Dortmund asked and Heidenheim said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The fee is $13.5M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Werder Bremen drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Felix Agu has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Werder Bremen have accepted the money. What Borussia Dortmund do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mirza Ćatović has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boubacar Kamara 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 watch every Borussia Dortmund game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Baniyas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Giannis Konstantelias and Borussia Dortmund agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
Bayer Leverkusen pay $760.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Borussia Mönchengladbach have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 16 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 easiest signature of my career.” Samuele Inácio and Borussia Dortmund agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A loan enquiry to Borussia Mönchengladbach: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Union Berlin have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mason Greenwood is living that version at Borussia Dortmund, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boubacar Kamara 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Borussia Dortmund have done the hard part with Lazio, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Borussia Dortmund asked and SC Freiburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer went to VfB Stuttgart this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Niels Nkounkou has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
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.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to Lazio with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Borussia Dortmund asked and Eintracht Frankfurt said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to Eintracht Frankfurt with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dan-Axel Zagadou is living that version at Borussia Dortmund, and it tends to show in the first month.
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 phone has started ringing about Cole Campbell again, and this time the name on the line is VfL Wolfsburg. Borussia Dortmund are listening politely and promising nothing.
8 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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Borussia Dortmund have paid $98.4M for Boubacar Kamara, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Borussia Dortmund asked and Real Madrid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Boubacar Kamara has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Boubacar Kamara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$98.4M on the table at Aston Villa. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to Eintracht Frankfurt with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“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.
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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Borussia Dortmund have done the hard part with Mainz 05, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martín Zubimendi 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ayman Azhil and Borussia Dortmund agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Almugera Kabar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gregor Kobel signs something — a contract at Borussia Dortmund or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Borussia Dortmund will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Borussia Dortmund have had the benefit of 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 Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martín Zubimendi 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 7 appearances in 38 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Serhou Guirassy is on it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Borussia Dortmund told Ben Nelson something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Borussia Dortmund are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Nico Schlotterbeck is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Serhou Guirassy signs something — a contract at Borussia Dortmund or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martín Zubimendi 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.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
5 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Martín Zubimendi has come out of that comparison in the side, and Borussia Dortmund have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Robin Hranáč trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
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.
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 Jamie Leweling is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gregor Kobel signs something — a contract at Borussia Dortmund 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 Borussia Dortmund would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“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.
“Ask me in the summer. I will know before anybody else does.” He is 37 with 251 appearances behind him, and Borussia Dortmund have to plan for both answers.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Borussia Dortmund. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Borussia Dortmund told Martín Zubimendi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I did not go to Petrolul to sit and watch. I want to come back to Borussia Dortmund and fight for my place.” 7 appearances in 34 matches say the rest.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Reda Khadra trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Borussia Dortmund. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Marcel Sabitzer.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Marcel Sabitzer
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Jamie Leweling scored in the 89th minute, Eintracht Frankfurt had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Borussia Dortmund took the lot.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martín Zubimendi 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.
A 1‑0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
In brief
Player ratingsJamie Leweling was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Player ratingsYan Couto did the work nobody counts — 7.00
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Up for the corner, and Felix Nmecha delivers — 7.98
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Felix Nmecha scored, was marked 7.98, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Lukas Kübler has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Borussia Dortmund have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ben Nelson has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, 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 Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martín Zubimendi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Borussia Dortmund are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 7 appearances in 30 say he has earned the hearing.
Out, 0‑0 to Bayer Leverkusen, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Marked 8.18 — 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.
Position 2, 57 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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.
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.
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.
“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 Borussia Dortmund know it.
Marked 8.17 — 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.
In brief
Player ratingsMartín Zubimendi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Borussia Dortmund scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martín Zubimendi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” James Rodríguez and Borussia Dortmund agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Dominik Kohr has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Borussia Dortmund have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 7 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
He is 19 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martín Zubimendi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Michael Svoboda has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
1‑0 against Bayern Munich, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Borussia Dortmund will try again when the window opens; Bayer Leverkusen may not be selling by then.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Borussia Dortmund until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Borussia Dortmund and a story that will outlast his contract.
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.
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.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Mainz 05 will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Borussia Dortmund were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Serhou Guirassy provided it, and the 9.22 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
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. Union Berlin have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match29 Jan 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Borussia Dortmund. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Jamie Leweling was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.41. 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Emre Can
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $150.2M has been paid because Martín Zubimendi is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
TSG Hoffenheim are out and Borussia Dortmund go through, 1‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Martín Zubimendi is living that version at Borussia Dortmund, and it tends to show in the first month.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Gregor Kobel: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.78, and 2 involvements.
$150.2M on the table at Arsenal. 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 offer from Olympique Lyonnais for Bitello 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. William Mikelbrencis has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Borussia Dortmund can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
A 2‑0 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$136.0M on the table at Everton. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Borussia Dortmund asked and Liverpool said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bayer Leverkusen paid $54.3M and Borussia Dortmund took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The offer went to VfB Stuttgart this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Daniel Svensson has gone, the accounts have $54.3M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Robin Hranáč is living that version at Borussia Dortmund, and it tends to show in the first month.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to VfB Stuttgart with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to TSG Hoffenheim with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
“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 Borussia Dortmund, and it is not being withdrawn.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Borussia Dortmund had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
Marked 8.86 — 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
1‑2 away to the standard of LOSC Lille. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Two goals and a mark of 9.18 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Up for the corner, and Felix Nmecha delivers — 7.91
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Felix Nmecha scored, was marked 7.91, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Borussia Dortmund pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
400 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Köln scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
2‑1 against Athletic Bilbao, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
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.
At 21 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Christoph Koch on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
With 5 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 5 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Christoph Koch after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
0‑1 against Slavia Prague. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jamie Leweling provided it, and the 8.26 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
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.
“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 Borussia Dortmund know it.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and FC Augsburg were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“I did not go to FC Augsburg to sit and watch. I want to come back to Borussia Dortmund and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 18 matches say the rest.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
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.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Christoph Koch was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Borussia Dortmund dressing room was either.
1‑1. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and Borussia Dortmund came through the finding-out well against Slavia Prague.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Marcel Sabitzer.
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 Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The ambition story running backwards, and the one nobody tells: a footballer who wants a smaller ground, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is rarely reported as anything else.
“I watch every Borussia Dortmund game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at RB Leipzig runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Gregor Kobel is on it.
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.
Beaten 0‑1 by Bayern Munich in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
“I watch every Borussia Dortmund game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FC Augsburg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutSerhou Guirassy has become a man the manager trusts
1‑0 against LOSC Lille, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Cole Campbell, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Jamie Leweling 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 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marcel Sabitzer and Borussia Dortmund agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Jamie Leweling was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. 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 is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
1‑2 against Athletic Bilbao. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Borussia Dortmund has to find a result from somewhere.
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 7.90 for the rest of 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 Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.81 beside his name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schlotterbeck 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Daniel Svensson and Borussia Dortmund agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Gregor Kobel
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jonas Adjetey is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
VfL Wolfsburg left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
Felix Nmecha is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Borussia Dortmund ran out of time with Barcelona. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 8 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
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.
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.
“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 Borussia Dortmund know it.
In brief
Player ratingsReda Khadra beats them one at a time
Barcelona have accepted the money. What Borussia Dortmund do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Serhou Guirassy will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Borussia Dortmund escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samuele Inácio is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The name of Samuele Inácio has come up in conversations Borussia Dortmund were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental 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 Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Gregor Kobel is on it.
Heidenheim next, and one man in the Borussia Dortmund dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Borussia Dortmund. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
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.
“I did not go to RB Leipzig to sit and watch. I want to come back to Borussia Dortmund and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Fábio Silva is somebody else's player now, and $4.3M has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 15 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” James Rodríguez and Borussia Dortmund agree another 2 years.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Serhou Guirassy is on it.
At 19 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” James Rodríguez commits to Borussia Dortmund for another 2 years.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
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 Felix Nmecha is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and James Rodríguez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Borussia Dortmund have lost him in all but the paperwork.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nico Schlotterbeck was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Borussia Dortmund. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
Werder Bremen pay $810.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julian Ryerson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 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.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Svensson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 4 on 65 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Borussia Dortmund have no good answer.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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 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 Borussia Dortmund know it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Diant Ramaj and Borussia Dortmund agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Svensson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Cole Campbell is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Eintracht Frankfurt have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
The dugoutFelix Nmecha has become a man the manager trusts
The chase for Max Rosenfelder ended with $15.9M changing hands and SC Freiburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Borussia Dortmund have gone to SC Freiburg with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and FC Augsburg waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Borussia Dortmund is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Max Rosenfelder has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
At 23 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.
Everything agreed with SC Freiburg, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The chase for Jonas Adjetey ended with $8.4M changing hands and VfL Wolfsburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ethan Nwaneri is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jonas Adjetey has, at Borussia Dortmund, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayer Leverkusen have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
The deal with VfL Wolfsburg is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund 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 Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.18, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sander Tangvik has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
Borussia Dortmund asked and Köln said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Borussia Dortmund can pretend not to have heard.
The offer went to VfL Wolfsburg this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“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.
At 19 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 easiest signature of my career.” Giannis Konstantelias and Borussia Dortmund agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
A season average of 6.60 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Borussia Dortmund know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julian Ryerson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
14 appearances at FC Copenhagen and the goals have stopped going in. Borussia Dortmund lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daley Blind trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Giacomo Bonaventura has written the date down.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Sven Brandt are not good
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
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.
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. Borussia Dortmund will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
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 Nico Schlotterbeck is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 4, 65 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
Successful dribbles: 43. 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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
Out, 0‑1 to Bayer Leverkusen, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Jamie Leweling 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 Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Borussia Dortmund pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Matteo Bianchetti has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julian Ryerson 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.
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 Ethan Nwaneri is on it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Borussia Dortmund are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Matteo Bianchetti is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
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.
Jamie Leweling and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Borussia Dortmund can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loan watch3 May 2027
Diant Ramaj’s loan is measured in nothing happening
12 clean sheets from 14 appearances at FC Copenhagen. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Borussia Dortmund. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Felix Nmecha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 4 on 65 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
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.
Position 4 on 65 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Bayer Leverkusen; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Daley Blind 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.
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.
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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Serhou Guirassy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.53. 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 helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Eintracht Frankfurt tried to reorganise, Borussia Dortmund did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
19 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
14 appearances at FC Copenhagen and the goals have stopped going in. Borussia Dortmund lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
In brief
Player ratingsEthan Nwaneri beats them one at a time
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.
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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Daley Blind 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Daley Blind will call it something else in private.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Joey Veerman is still being punished for one mistake
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.
18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
105 minutes played. Serhou Guirassy found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and VfB Stuttgart went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Jamie Leweling 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.
Jamie Leweling and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Borussia Dortmund are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Level with 88 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Borussia Dortmund had all but put away. VfB Stuttgart will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 9 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Felix Nmecha is on it.
16 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Felix Nmecha 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 easiest signature of my career.” Marcel Sabitzer and Borussia Dortmund agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A last season at home is what Daley Blind is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
Position 3, 55 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Borussia Dortmund are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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 Gregor Kobel is on it.
15 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Joey Veerman 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.
Nobody at Borussia Dortmund 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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Borussia Dortmund know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Two goals and a mark of 8.71 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Giannis Konstantelias 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daley Blind 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.
In brief
Player ratingsJamie Leweling was on a different afternoon to everybody else
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Borussia Dortmund have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Serhou Guirassy and Borussia Dortmund agree another 3 years.
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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hamburger SV have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The shirt still fits. Reda Khadra is back at Borussia Dortmund, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Borussia Dortmund asked and TSG Hoffenheim said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Position 3, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Maximilian Beier was one of the reasons people came, and $104.0M does not replace that by itself.
6 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Reda Khadra has just signed for Borussia Dortmund, and for once the answer mattered.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
$22.8M settles it between the clubs for Reda Khadra
Qarabag have accepted the money. What Borussia Dortmund do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Hamburger SV paid $7.5M and Borussia Dortmund took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Jamie Leweling 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Porto have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Serhou Guirassy provided it, and the 9.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Felix Nmecha 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.
Joey Veerman 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.
Marked 8.28 — 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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $53.8M has been paid because Jamie Leweling is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Borussia Dortmund asked and FC Augsburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Two goals and a mark of 9.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jamie Leweling is living that version at Borussia Dortmund, and it tends to show in the first month.
The offer from Hamburger SV for Konstantinos Karetsas 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Jamie Leweling was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $53.8M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
The offer went to VfB Stuttgart this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. RB Leipzig have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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. Borussia Dortmund will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
The first defeat in 17 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Bayer Leverkusen; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Julian Ryerson 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 had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
Position 2, 36 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The dugout21 Dec 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 0‑1 Christoph Koch left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Borussia Dortmund scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Ethan Nwaneri, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Felix Nmecha 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 Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
A 2‑1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daley Blind was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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.
The first defeat in 6 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Köln; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“I watch every Borussia Dortmund game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at St. Pauli runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Joey Veerman 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.
Loan watch7 Dec 2026
Diant Ramaj’s loan is measured in nothing happening
11 clean sheets from 13 appearances at FC Copenhagen. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
8 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.
12 appearances at FC Copenhagen and the goals have stopped going in. Borussia Dortmund lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Successful dribbles: 31. 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.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Felix Nmecha 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daley Blind was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joey Veerman 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.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 7 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramy Bensebaini 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 did not go to St. Pauli to sit and watch. I want to come back to Borussia Dortmund and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Christoph Koch could afford to be generous.
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Ethan Nwaneri decided nobody was going anywhere. TSG Hoffenheim had no time left to answer.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
He is 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daley Blind 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Joey Veerman 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then RB Leipzig scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“I watch every Borussia Dortmund game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at St. Pauli runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Marc Schumacher and Borussia Dortmund agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Maximilian Beier and Borussia Dortmund agree another 5 years.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Julian Ryerson 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.
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Joey Veerman 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.
In brief
Player ratingsSerhou Guirassy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Two goals and a mark of 9.21 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
“I watch every Borussia Dortmund game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at St. Pauli runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexander Fischer 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marc Schumacher has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daley Blind 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.
With 7 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Maximilian Beier 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joey Veerman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Serhou Guirassy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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 Borussia Dortmund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramy Bensebaini 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Borussia Dortmund, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Christoph Koch after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Borussia Dortmund asked and Konyaspor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Daley Blind 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Christoph Koch chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Serhou Guirassy signs something — a contract at Borussia Dortmund or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Werder Bremen? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Luca Kerber is living that version at Borussia Dortmund, and it tends to show in the first month.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayer Leverkusen have kept their man, and Borussia Dortmund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Frank Schulze has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Friedrich Schmid 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ramy Bensebaini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A 1‑0 win over VfL Wolfsburg, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
That is the business done at Borussia Dortmund until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Borussia Dortmund asked and Portsmouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Borussia Dortmund heard it as anything else.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramy Bensebaini 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.
With 7 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Union Berlin scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
The captaincy has been taken off Nico Schlotterbeck. Borussia Dortmund will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.