6 goals in one match, Saša Kalajdžić on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of LASK and Altach.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LASK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Grazer AK kept coming because nothing stopped them, and LASK will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Altach next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Half the programme played, position 2, 20 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Bello is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Position 2, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kevin Lebersorger is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LASK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismaïla Coulibaly is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Not 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.
Xavier Mbuyamba and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at LASK can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad12 Oct 2026
5 new faces, and LASK 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.
7 goals in 6 games at Honved — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at LASK updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Austria Wien in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Đorđe Jovanović signs something — a contract at LASK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at LASK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Adetunji Adeshina did not need any: 8.03, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Marked 9.83 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Xavier Mbuyamba was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 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.
The goal that put Sturm Graz ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when LASK equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at LASK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Michael Lazaro could afford to be generous.
LASK ran out of time with Hartberg. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Saša Kalajdžić provided it, and the 9.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
LASK ran out of time with Levski. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
It finished 3‑1, and it was Saša Kalajdžić’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to LASK.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Samuel Adeniran was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.47. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. LASK have done the hard part with Levski, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what LASK can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 18 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at LASK 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Robert Ljubičić has come out of that comparison in the side, and LASK have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Wolfsberger AC next, and one man in the LASK dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The offer went to Levski this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Laurenz Orgler had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. LASK have paid $2.1M for Arjan Malić, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
The offer from Nyíregyháza for Arjan Malić 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.
“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 LASK, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
LASK had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Lecce, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Everything agreed with Sturm Graz, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“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 LASK, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from DC United for George Bello 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.
LASK asked and Hartberg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 2‑1 win over Rapid Wien, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Robert Ljubičić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Saša Kalajdžić at his very best
LASK have gone to Lecce with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Orlando Pirates for Jalal Abdullai 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.
LASK asked and Rapid Wien said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Chicago Fire moved on, Samuel Adeniran reports back to LASK, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Xavier Mbuyamba 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.
LASK offered $23.1M; Birmingham 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.
Molde have accepted the money. What LASK do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about LASK and Hartberg in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
LASK have gone to Birmingham with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what LASK can pretend not to have heard.
LASK have gone to Molde 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.
Xavier Mbuyamba was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The phone has started ringing about Emmanuel Michael again, and this time the name on the line is Austria Klagenfurt. LASK are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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 LASK hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.