Marked for Nicolas Binder
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Gaoussou Diarra 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 8.44 — 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Skye Vink gets it from the manager
“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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
87% of the income goes out in wages at Cambuur
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Match5 Sep 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Utrecht leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Cambuur will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
Alexander Büttner 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 9.28 — 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gaoussou Diarra. 2‑1 against Feyenoord, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.28, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Alexander Büttner 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.01, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolas Binder, and the manager let it.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Gaoussou Diarra’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cambuur.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cambuur, another week without a signature from Pasquale Pane.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Skye Vink makes his debut at 20
At 20 years old, Skye Vink became the latest name off the academy production line to be handed a senior shirt.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nicolas Binder and Cambuur agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jamal Amofa 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Nicolas Binder's contract
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Morgan Costarelli has his answer from Cambuur; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jamal Amofa 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 Cambuur, and both men came out saying it was fine.