Evert Linthorst and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 May 2029
Words at Almere City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Rossi 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Almere City, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Sebastiaan Hagedoorn is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Almere City have no good answer.
“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 The request is on a desk at Almere City, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pedro Bravo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Jamie Jacobs 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.
Something was said to Ziggy van Handenhove and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Almere City have no good answer.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Den Bosch, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Den Bosch is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The fee is $150.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Heracles drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Deyovaisio Zeefuik was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Stevenage have kept their man, and Den Bosch go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Den Bosch will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Pepijn van de Merbel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Remco Balk 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.
Den Bosch have made the call to Toronto FC. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.