Beaten 0‑3 by Feyenoord, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Telstar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Beelen 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Steven Aké after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
13 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and NAC Breda were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Tyrese Noslin 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.
Telstar asked and PSV said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
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.
Telstar have made the call to Philadelphia Union. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
13 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Everything agreed with Panathinaikos, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telstar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Telstar asked and Helmond Sport said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anass Achahbar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Telstar are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Telstar can tell you which week it ends in.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Something was said to Tyrese Noslin and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Thomas Beelen 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tyrone Owusu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tyrese Noslin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telstar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 6.96, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
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 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anass Achahbar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telstar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Telstar will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Telstar. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telstar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Telstar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anass Achahbar 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 dugout2 Nov 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 1‑3 Steven Aké left the room before anybody could ask which.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
Sparta Rotterdam next, and one man in the Telstar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Telstar is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Up for the corner, and Thomas Beelen delivers — 7.87
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Thomas Beelen scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thomas Beelen. 2‑1 against Groningen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Telstar told Thomas Beelen something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Travis de Jong. 2‑0 against Fortuna Sittard, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Telstar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anass Achahbar 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.
Jessy Lobbes 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Steven Aké on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. OH Leuven have kept their man, and Telstar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anass Achahbar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Travis de Jong 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.
Level with 87 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Telstar had all but put away. NAC Breda will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $25.0K — a club that wants Xander Mulder enough to be asked twice.
$53.0K on the table at MVV Maastricht. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$24.0K was the most the club would pay and RKC Waalwijk 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.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Layee Kromah has just signed for Telstar, and for once the answer mattered.
The offer went to RKC Waalwijk 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.
Telstar asked and Ajax said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Telstar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Telstar 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.