The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Vitesse can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitesse this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2‑3 to Heracles, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Samuel Soares 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Vitesse have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitesse this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Samuel Soares 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.
Cambuur will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nicolas Binder has pre-agreed a move to Vitesse, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Willem II ended it 0‑0. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
A brace, and Aaron Spetale takes the afternoon — 8.50
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aaron Spetale provided it, and the 8.50 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Vitesse this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Aaron Spetale. 3‑1 against Zwolle, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Sem Yvel has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Vitesse training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elias Huth 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.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Vitesse training over how hard people work
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.
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.
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.