From our football correspondent
Steady
Match2 Nov 2026
Stripfing refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 23 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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Xaver Wimmer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
$2.1M on the table at Stripfing
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“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 Stripfing, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Marked 7.46. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Julian Onisiwo chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Christoph Junuzovic. Stripfing will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.34, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Stripfing
Maximilian Laimer 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Stripfing
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Xaver Wimmer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
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.
Match24 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Romeo Vučić. 2‑0 against Amstetten, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Peter Tschernegg dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Romeo Vučić finally opens his account
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Stripfing have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Peter Tschernegg asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Romeo Vučić beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 33. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kennet Eichhorn is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Xaver Wimmer 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Markus Arnautovic, and the manager let it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Stripfing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christoph Kalajdzic 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 dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Julian Onisiwo left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Stripfing told Alexander Murillo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Peter Tschernegg
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Michael Wober and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Stripfing told Kennet Eichhorn something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad12 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Stripfing 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market12 Oct 2026
The name of Xaver Wimmer keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Stripfing say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Kevin Trimmel knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stripfing, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Oct 2026
Stripfing are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 19 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Maximilian Laimer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Stripfing
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Xaver Wimmer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.00 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Stripfing prefer.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Xaver Wimmer makes the team of the month
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Stripfing
Maximilian Laimer 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Hertha Wels, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Stripfing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xaver Wimmer 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Xaver Wimmer was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Romeo Vučić beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Julian Onisiwo could afford to be generous.
Market28 Sep 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Christoph Kalajdzic has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Stripfing.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Patrick Touray
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.63 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Stripfing will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Markus Arnautovic and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
Stripfing caught on 86 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Sturm Graz II scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
The afternoon belonged to Xaver Wimmer
A mark of 7.78, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Match19 Sep 2026
It needed Alexander Murillo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Sturm Graz II, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market21 Sep 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Maximilian Laimer may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stripfing can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
$74.0K was the most the club would pay and Austria Wien 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nyíregyháza have kept their man, and Stripfing go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Valentino Prass, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Xaver Wimmer 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Xaver Wimmer at his very best
Marked 8.31. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Stripfing.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Stripfing
Patrick Touray 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Stripfing 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Stripfing, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 8 in, 11 out at Stripfing
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $77.9K — a club that wants Fabian Janković enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Werder Bremen keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Maximilian Laimer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The offer went to Austria Wien 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Admira Wacker paid $480.0K and Stripfing took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad7 Sep 2026
At 19 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Stripfing will try not to make too much of it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Stripfing
0‑1 against First Vienna, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Stripfing, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Michael Laimer had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.81, and nobody on the pitch better.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Stripfing asked and FC Annecy said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Stripfing
Xaver Wimmer 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Romeo Vučić beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Austria Lustenau, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A mark of 7.85, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
In brief
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Transfer targets
A loan move for Péter Beke is in the works
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Transfer targets
A loan move for Salim Musah is in the works
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
Stripfing say no — this time
The offer from Omonia 29M for Michael Laimer 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Stripfing, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Stripfing sell a favourite for $3.3M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Dominik Ulmer was one of the reasons people came, and $3.3M does not replace that by itself.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 7.69 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
Dominik Ulmer has left for Rapid Wien in a $3.3M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Stripfing asked and Admira Wacker said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Maximilian Laimer 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Austria Wien wanted more than $160.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Stripfing
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Xaver Wimmer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
Stripfing say no — this time
The offer from Kapfenberg for Dominik Ulmer 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Stripfing spend $660.0K to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $660.0K has been paid because Romeo Vučić is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Hartberg have kept their man, and Stripfing go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $166.9K — a club that wants Abdoulaye Kanté enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Stripfing this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$160.0K on the table at Austria Wien. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Market17 Aug 2026
Rapid Wien paid $770.0K and Stripfing took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$160.0K was the most the club would pay and Blau-Weiß Linz 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Michael Laimer, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market10 Aug 2026
Stripfing say no — this time
The offer from Wolfsberger AC for Christian Graf 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Austria Wien is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $166.9K — a club that wants João Luiz enough to be asked twice.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Maximilian Laimer commits to Stripfing for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Stripfing
Maximilian Laimer 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$160.0K on the table at Blau-Weiß Linz. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Stripfing asked and Austria 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
Young Violets will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Stripfing were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Michael Laimer could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.32
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.32, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and David Posch takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. David Posch provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
An offer of $830.0K for Yusuf Demir
Stripfing have gone to Rapid Wien 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“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 Aug 2026
Maximilian Laimer and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Stripfing training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xaver Wimmer 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Stripfing asked and Eintracht Braunschweig 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 terraces3 Aug 2026
He is 17 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.
In brief
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Squad
The formation has left Luka Caculović behind
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Transfer targets
A loan move for Kennet Eichhorn is in the works
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict