5 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.
Satoshi Tanaka 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. 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Florent Muslija was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout28 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 Ralf Frank left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Florent Muslija’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Fortuna Düsseldorf needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
7 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Fortuna Düsseldorf can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ralf Frank after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Valgeir Lunddal and Fortuna Düsseldorf agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shinta Appelkamp was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Successful dribbles: 9. 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Florent Muslija was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The captaincy has been taken off Diego Valdés. Fortuna Düsseldorf will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jordy de Wijs’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Fortuna Düsseldorf needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Fortuna Düsseldorf than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
It is a strip of cloth and it decides nothing on a Saturday. It still tells the dressing room exactly whose opinion the manager values, which is the whole point of it.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Fortuna Düsseldorf has to find a result from somewhere.
100 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.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” King Manu and Fortuna Düsseldorf agree another 4 years.
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.
Werder Bremen go through and Fortuna Düsseldorf go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fortuna Düsseldorf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout23 Nov 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.” Ralf Frank chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Shinta Appelkamp's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Diego Valdés wants continental football; whether Fortuna Düsseldorf can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tim Rossmann and Fortuna Düsseldorf agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Florent Muslija 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.
Anouar El Azzouzi has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Satoshi Tanaka and Fortuna Düsseldorf agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Satoshi Tanaka 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.
“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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Darmstadt 98 were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“I watch every Fortuna Düsseldorf game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Nürnberg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Florent Muslija was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sima Suso is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Ralf Frank kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
6 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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Fortuna Düsseldorf can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against SV Elversberg? 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.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Fortuna Düsseldorf has to find a result from somewhere.
5 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Florent Muslija was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout19 Oct 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.” Ralf Frank chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. VfL Bochum defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Fortuna Düsseldorf was different afterwards.
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 Matthias Zimmermann has written the date down.
In brief
Looking aheadLooking ahead: the trip to SV Elversberg
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fortuna Düsseldorf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Fortuna Düsseldorf that is a harder question to answer.
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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Fortuna Düsseldorf can tell you which week it ends in.
“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; Fortuna Düsseldorf are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Satoshi Tanaka 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.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fortuna Düsseldorf 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.
0‑1 to Hannover 96, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout28 Sep 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 Ralf Frank left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Florent Muslija 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 shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Diego Valdés wants continental football; whether Fortuna Düsseldorf can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ralf Frank after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Florent Muslija’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Fortuna Düsseldorf needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Fortuna Düsseldorf is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Fortuna Düsseldorf squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Anouar El Azzouzi reports back to Fortuna Düsseldorf with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Fortuna Düsseldorf 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 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.” Ralf Frank chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Magdeburg defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Borussia Mönchengladbach waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fortuna Düsseldorf is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fortuna Düsseldorf can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 17 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Fortuna Düsseldorf 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.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Karlsruher SC moved on, Danny Schmidt reports back to Fortuna Düsseldorf, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Florent Muslija 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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Fortuna Düsseldorf than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Hamza Anhari has gone, the accounts have $2.6M 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.
Arminia Bielefeld paid $2.6M and Fortuna Düsseldorf took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $2.5M for Diego Valdés, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Fortuna Düsseldorf asked and FC Metz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 1‑0 win over Holstein Kiel, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Fortuna Düsseldorf are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
$2.5M settles it between the clubs for Diego Valdés
Vélez have accepted the money. What Fortuna Düsseldorf do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mainz 05 have kept their man, and Fortuna Düsseldorf go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Fortuna Düsseldorf can pretend not to have heard.
Fortuna Düsseldorf offered $910.0K; VfL Wolfsburg said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Julian Hettwer 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. Florent Muslija 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 squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Emmanuel Iyoha’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Fortuna Düsseldorf needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Fortuna Düsseldorf, another week without a signature from Tony Springett.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Elche have kept their man, and Fortuna Düsseldorf go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$910.0K on the table at VfL Wolfsburg. 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $22.7M — a club that wants Wouter Burger enough to be asked twice.
$700.0K was the most the club would pay and Schalke 04 were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Satoshi Tanaka 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Fortuna Düsseldorf, another week without a signature from Luca Sirch.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Florent Muslija was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. VfB Stuttgart have kept their man, and Fortuna Düsseldorf go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and St. Pauli waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Fortuna Düsseldorf 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. Luca Sirch has just signed for Fortuna Düsseldorf, and for once the answer mattered.
Everything was agreed with VfB Stuttgart and then the doctor spoke. Fortuna Düsseldorf have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
Fortuna Düsseldorf have gone to Schalke 04 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $763.8K — a club that wants Bryan Lasme enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fortuna Düsseldorf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Patrick Meyer has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Fortuna Düsseldorf asked and Leeds United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$410.0K on the table at Sturm Graz. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Satoshi Tanaka 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 phone has started ringing about Luca Raimund again, and this time the name on the line is St. Pauli. Fortuna Düsseldorf are listening politely and promising nothing.
VfB Stuttgart 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Florent Muslija was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Fortuna Düsseldorf has been clear about where Danny Schmidt stands, which is more than many ever get.