The match ball belongs to Finn Stokkers, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Bendegúz Kovács, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 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.
AZ will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Mathijs Menu has pre-agreed a move to TOP Oss, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
He is 19 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at TOP Oss this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
David Min 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 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 dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Thomas Buitink's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Daley Malen to a room that had heard them before.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. TOP Oss know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad15 Feb 2027
6 new faces, and TOP Oss 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at TOP Oss, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AZ people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Ajax for Alexandre Penetra 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Willem II had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
A brace, and Mao Hosoya takes the afternoon — 8.42
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mao Hosoya provided it, and the 8.42 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at TOP Oss 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.
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. TOP Oss know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Fedde Leysen 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 phone has started ringing about Julian Kuijpers again, and this time the name on the line is Twente. TOP Oss are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Jan Lammers 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.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AZ 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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
2‑0 against LASK, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
A brace, and Mao Hosoya takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mao Hosoya provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
A brace, and Mexx Meerdink takes the afternoon — 8.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mexx Meerdink provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Position 3, 30 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.
“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 AZ hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
2‑1 against HJK, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Peer Koopmeiners was at the centre of the description.
“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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Bart van Rooij wants continental football; whether AZ can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Calvin Stengs 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at AZ can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kees Smit did not need any: 7.97, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Feyenoord; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZ will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 22 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at AZ can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Peer Koopmeiners 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. AZ told Ibrahim Sadiq something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nobody at AZ 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutDenso Kasius asks for a word with the manager
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AZ 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 AZ, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Feyenoord for Wouter Goes 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 deal that would have taken Jizz Hornkamp to Sparta Rotterdam has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to AZ with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
AZ close the window on a squad of their own making
8 in and 26 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.
“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 AZ 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 AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
AZ asked and Heerenveen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.