Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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. Josip Stanišić 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Jeremy Toljan has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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: 18. 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.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 The request is on a desk at Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Köln, another week without a signature from Saïd El Mala.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln heard it as anything else.
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.
Eintracht Frankfurt will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Visar Musliu has pre-agreed a move to Köln, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 13 gone
That is the business done at Köln 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.
“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.
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.
Fiete Arp 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.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
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.
500 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mert Kömür has, at Köln, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Youssoupha Niang will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Köln the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln 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 Josip Stanišić 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Köln have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Silas Ostrzinski 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad20 Aug 2029
7 new faces, and Köln 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Köln will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Köln will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
$3.8M was the most the club would pay and RB Leipzig 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ísak Jóhannesson 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 not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Köln have gone to RB Leipzig 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.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 Köln know it.
36 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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 Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Köln will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Silas Ostrzinski 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dominik Weber is 17, 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 had been thinking. Josip Stanišić 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 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 Luka Lijeskić has written the date down.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Köln have lost him in all but the paperwork.
TSG Hoffenheim have accepted the money. What Köln do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Youssoupha Niang is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Bayer Leverkusen wanted more than $370.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Josip Stanišić 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Josip Stanišić 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.
Day 8 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Köln have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Köln will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Miljan Momčilović is living that version at Köln, and it tends to show in the first month.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The chase for Josip Stanišić ended with $6.7M changing hands and Bayern Munich 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 Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Eintracht Frankfurt pay $5.8M, 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.
Joël Schmied 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
At 21 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fiete Arp was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bayern Munich have accepted the money. What Köln do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Köln have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Joël Schmied is living that version at Köln, and it tends to show in the first month.
The shirt still fits. Joël Schmied is back at Köln, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Fiete Arp 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 87 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bayern Munich have kept their man, and Köln go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Köln offered $710.0K; Hamburger SV 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.
Fiete Arp 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln heard it as anything else.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gavin Vlijter is living that version at Köln, and it tends to show in the first month.
In brief
SquadWords at Köln training over how hard people work
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Linton Maina
MarketKöln may not be able to give Otávio what he wants
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Carl Klaus has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Silas Ostrzinski 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Köln training over how hard people work
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fiete Arp 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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Köln know it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ísak Jóhannesson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln 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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Martínez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Silas Ostrzinski 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 Fiete Arp was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, 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 Köln. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Youssoupha Niang will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Köln the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fiete Arp was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Fiete Arp 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Linton Maina wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ísak Jóhannesson 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yonatthan Rak will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Köln the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Silas Ostrzinski 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.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Fiete Arp 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 Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Köln can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Köln interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Position 11 on 37 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.
Silas Ostrzinski 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. Fiete Arp 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.
Player ratings16 Apr 2029
Ragnar Ache was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.18. 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Day 39 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Fiete Arp 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 a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Gideon Mensah
“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 Köln know it.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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. Fiete Arp 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Silas Ostrzinski 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.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Fiete Arp 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 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 Köln know it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ricky-Jade Jones has his answer from Köln; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Saïd El Mala 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.
It needed Saïd El Mala to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Bayer Leverkusen, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Nobody at Köln 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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 Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Fiete Arp 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 approach has been made to Slaven Belupo and the answer is somebody else's to give. These things are settled in private and reported in public, usually in that order.
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Köln training over how hard people work
Ísak Jóhannesson had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and VfB Stuttgart were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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: 26. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Sebastian Sebulonsen wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Fiete Arp 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 games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.73 on the card, and the Köln support went home talking about one name.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” the manager, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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 Ragnar Ache is on it.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Jeremy Toljan
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Youssoupha Niang will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Köln the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Fiete Arp 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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Köln can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Köln close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 3 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.
Fiete Arp 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Werder Bremen waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Köln is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Köln supporters have already started telling it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fiete Arp was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Köln people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
The bid was some way short and Köln did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Fiete Arp 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.
Miro Muheim 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 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 Köln know it.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Köln will be judged on one thing only.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Hamburger SV for Miro Muheim 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Yonatthan Rak has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Fiete Arp 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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.93 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Köln lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ísak Jóhannesson scored, was marked 7.99, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
The phone has started ringing about Miro Muheim again, and this time the name on the line is Hamburger SV. Köln are listening politely and promising nothing.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Fiete Arp 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 3‑1 win over St. Pauli, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings8 Jan 2029
Ragnar Ache was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ragnar Ache had Köln level again within 4 minutes, and St. Pauli never got to play with a lead at all.
In brief
Player ratingsSaïd El Mala beats them one at a time
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
The offer from Godoy Cruz for Luka Lijeskić 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fiete Arp 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Köln lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Linton Maina wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Köln and VfL Wolfsburg in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Fiete Arp was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.83. 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Ísak Jóhannesson 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Sebastian Sebulonsen wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fiete Arp was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
Fiete Arp was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. 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.
Half the programme played, position 15, 12 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Level with 94 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Köln had all but put away. Union Berlin will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 7.86 for the rest of it.
“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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln 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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 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.
1‑2 against Eintracht Frankfurt, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Fiete Arp 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Youssoupha Niang 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.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout20 Nov 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by the manager to a room that had heard them before.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
In brief
The dugoutKeita Kosugi is still being punished for one mistake
The dugoutJeremy Toljan knocks on the manager's door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Fiete Arp 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 Ísak Jóhannesson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 95. SC Freiburg had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Köln told Ragnar Ache something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Fiete Arp 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
A point taken on 89 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ellyes Skhiri is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Köln told Bruno Damiani something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutRagnar Ache knocks on the manager's door
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
He is 22 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. Ellyes Skhiri 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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Jeremy Toljan 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 Miro Muheim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Fiete Arp was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
Jeremy Toljan 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. Miro Muheim 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.
7 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.
In brief
The dugoutthe manager answers for it
The dugoutMarkus Kolke dropped after a run of poor form
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — the manager made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
0‑3 to RB Leipzig, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Köln training over how hard people work
40 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln heard it as anything else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
9 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miro Muheim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
In brief
Player ratingsLinton Maina was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Jeremy Toljan 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 Miro Muheim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Köln will be judged on one thing only.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Bayern Munich scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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 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 Köln know it.
Mainz 05 held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Köln answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Köln, another week without a signature from Saïd El Mala.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ísak Jóhannesson scored, was marked 7.93, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. VfL Wolfsburg have kept their man, and Köln go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Eintracht Frankfurt is saying, and nobody at Köln is enjoying the guessing.
SC Freiburg paid $13.9M and Köln took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.43 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. Ethan Butera is living that version at Köln, and it tends to show in the first month.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 27 arrived, 13 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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 Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
12 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Augsburg have kept their man, and Köln go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
SquadWords at Köln training over how hard people work
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Köln will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have shaken hands with Eintracht Frankfurt; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohamed Belloumi provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Matthias Koch recited it perfectly.
TSG Hoffenheim paid $2.7M and Köln 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 from Werder Bremen for Fayssal Harchaoui 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dominik Weber is 16, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Köln will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Tom Krauß 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 name of Jahmai Simpson-Pusey has come up in conversations Köln were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Nobody at Köln 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Köln will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Miro Muheim has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Fayssal Harchaoui is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Jackson Irvine 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Köln will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Köln can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
The offer from Sion for Miro Muheim 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.
9 seasons and 478 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jahmai Simpson-Pusey is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
At 21, Saïd El Mala is already the best thing here
An average of 7.03 in a first team he is several years too young for. Köln have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
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 Ragnar Ache is on it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Köln will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sam Lammers has just signed for Köln, and for once the answer mattered.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Bruno Damiani has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 63 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Finn Jeltsch was one of the reasons people came, and $88.8M does not replace that by itself.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ellyes Skhiri 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 dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Leon Klußmann is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
“I watch every Köln game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Union Berlin runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
In brief
The dugoutMarvin Schwäbe has become a man the manager trusts
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 70 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
$14.7M was the most the club would pay and Chicago Fire 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Andreas Schmid is 15, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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 Mohamed Belloumi is on it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 77 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The offer went to Chicago Fire 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.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
The offer from Ceará for Stefan Smarkalev 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.
Jeremy Toljan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Köln offered $180.0K; Werder Bremen 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Köln will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Luka Lijeskić comes from Radnicki 1923 for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
Köln had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Hamburger SV, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Jeremy Toljan 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
In brief
SquadAt 21, Saïd El Mala is already the best thing here
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 92 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Köln have done the hard part with Radnicki 1923, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Köln 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Miro Muheim 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 Köln 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Köln will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Ceuta had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The fee is $510.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. St. Pauli drove a hard bargain; time will say who won 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 Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Köln will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Florian Roth has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
$10.6M on the table at Luzern. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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.
Transfer targets5 Jun 2028
$760.0K settles it between the clubs for Adam Dźwigała
St. Pauli have accepted the money. What Köln do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
“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.
The offer went to St. Pauli 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Köln will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Jeremy Toljan 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 season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Köln know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ellyes Skhiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not 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.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miro Muheim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Köln 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Köln, 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 Köln. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 May 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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 Mohamed Belloumi is on it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Köln told Otávio something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 Köln would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Jeremy Toljan 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 Ellyes Skhiri 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 Marvin Schwäbe is on it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Finn Jeltsch is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is William Bøving's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jeremy Toljan 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.03, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miro Muheim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ellyes Skhiri 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 has had enough of the noise. Whether Köln can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Faik Sakar is 20, and Köln have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
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.
0‑3 to Union Berlin, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Juan Peñaloza. 2‑0 against Heidenheim, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miro Muheim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” St. Louis CITY SC had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jeremy Toljan 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 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.
A season average of 7.02 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Köln know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
In brief
SquadEllyes Skhiri falls out with a teammate over standards
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tom Krauß scored, was marked 7.81, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ellyes Skhiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Saïd El Mala did not need any: 7.71, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 Köln know 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 Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Saïd El Mala 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. Miro Muheim 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.
1‑5 against SC Freiburg, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Jeremy Toljan 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 Köln hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
6 goals in one match, William Bøving on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Köln and SC Freiburg.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑5 defeat, delivered by Florian Roth to a room that had heard them before.
“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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln heard it as anything else.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
At 21, Saïd El Mala is already the best thing here
An average of 7.00 in a first team he is several years too young for. Köln have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ellyes Skhiri 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
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ellyes Skhiri
The offer from St. Louis CITY SC for Malek El Mala 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Köln is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Linton Maina wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miro Muheim 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Köln 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 Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Köln can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ellyes Skhiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.82, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gerrit Gohlke is living that version at Köln, and it tends to show in the first month.
Köln ran out of time with St. Pauli. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ellyes Skhiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 95. TSG Hoffenheim had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
$1.1M settles it between the clubs for Adam Dźwigała
St. Pauli have accepted the money. What Köln do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Köln close the window on a squad of their own making
8 in and 4 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Benjamin Stambouli has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Fiete Arp 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Köln, and 0 appearances in 26 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
SquadWords at Köln training over how hard people work
SquadFinn Jeltsch is the month’s best young player
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. TSG Hoffenheim have kept their man, and Köln go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Köln they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
$350.0K was the most the club would pay and SC Freiburg 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ellyes Skhiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Borussia Mönchengladbach were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
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.
Borussia Dortmund wanted more than $800.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ellyes Skhiri 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 Köln, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
The offer from Hamburger SV for Jahmai Simpson-Pusey 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Köln have done the hard part with VfL Wolfsburg, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Köln can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Köln have done the hard part with Mainz 05, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$3.1M on the table at Mainz 05. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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 phone has started ringing about Jahmai Simpson-Pusey again, and this time the name on the line is Hamburger SV. Köln are listening politely and promising nothing.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jonas Hoffmann 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.
Köln have gone to Southampton 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.
$2.2M on the table at Mainz 05. 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 went to Mainz 05 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.
Köln asked and Bayern Munich said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Jeremy Toljan 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 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Ellyes Skhiri 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 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Köln can pretend not to have heard.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Sebastian Sebulonsen wants continental football; whether Köln can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miro Muheim 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.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ellyes Skhiri 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.
200 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.
Half the programme played, position 11, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
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 Florian Roth left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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. Ellyes Skhiri 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 Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Köln 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 Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑2 to Borussia Dortmund, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Miro Muheim 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 did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Köln will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Ellyes Skhiri 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Köln this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ragnar Ache scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Bayer Leverkusen, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Miro Muheim 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 dugout22 Nov 2027
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 1‑2 Florian Roth left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Köln 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 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.
“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; Köln are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miro Muheim 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. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
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.
“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.
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.
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 7.95 for the rest of it.
Jeremy Toljan 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Ellyes Skhiri 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.