25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Lukas Görtler was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A performance of 9.42 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Jozo Stanić 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at St. Gallen pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jozo Stanić 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.10, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
197% of the income goes out in wages at St. Gallen
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at St. Gallen who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Valentino Pereyra and St. Gallen agree another 4 years.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Moctar Diop, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.32
A mark of 8.32 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
23 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. St. Gallen will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jozo Stanić 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.
“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 St. Gallen, and it is not being withdrawn.
27 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.
Lukas Görtler was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Felix Goddard is a St. Gallen player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. St. Gallen told Moctar Diop something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Marked 7.75 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, St. Gallen had the best player on the pitch.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and St. Gallen are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
42 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Moctar Diop did not need any: 8.07, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Jozo Stanić 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. Mateo Albornoz is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Moctar Diop 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.
Lukas Görtler was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jozo Stanić 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.
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and St. Gallen have gone and got theirs early.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Moctar Diop did not need any: 7.77, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen 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.
“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 St. Gallen, and it is not being withdrawn.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carraça 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Moctar Diop
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
The deal that would have taken Antonio Verinac to Luzern has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to St. Gallen with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Tom Gaal 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. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at St. Gallen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jozo Stanić 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
205% of the income goes out in wages at St. Gallen
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
Christian Witzig 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.
Add another name to the list: Basel have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Malamine Efekele. The answer from St. Gallen has not changed — yet.
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.
8.21. 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 St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jozo Stanić 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 name of Antonio Verinac has come up in conversations St. Gallen were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Carraça is 33 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Lukas Görtler was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
23 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.
Add another name to the list: Grasshopper have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Betim Fazliji. The answer from St. Gallen has not changed — yet.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lawrence Ati-Zigi and St. Gallen agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Gallen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lukas Daschner trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at St. Gallen has been clear about where Antonio Verinac stands, which is more than many ever get.