The mood at Stromsgodset has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Rayan Atikallah 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
“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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Stromsgodset has been clear about where Sebastian Pingel stands, which is more than many ever get.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Stromsgodset pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Feyenoord lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Feyenoord can pretend not to have heard.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Feyenoord heard it as anything else.
The name of Rayan Atikallah has come up in conversations Feyenoord were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Feyenoord are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lommel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lommel 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 Lommel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 at Lommel 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
Rayan Atikallah 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lautaro López 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 Jason van Duiven trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 75 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.
Sverre Nypan 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 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 fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Toby Vanaken has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dedryck Mertens is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Thorgan Hazard has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Thorgan Tielemans has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lommel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lommel can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lommel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Sverre Nypan 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Lommel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rayan Atikallah 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lommel can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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 Jason van Duiven is on it.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Rik Vercauteren'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.
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lommel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Robin van Duiven is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lommel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rayan Atikallah was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Jason van Duiven 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.
Marked 6.95 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“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 dugout29 Mar 2027
Sam de Grand is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
RFC Liege next, and one man in the Lommel dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jason van Duiven provided it, and the 8.95 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Jan Virgili, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.51
A mark of 8.51 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lommel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Lommel and RWDM, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Jorne Spileers 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 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.
At 22 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Robin van Duiven in the middle of it, and Beerschot unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lommel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Lommel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rayan Atikallah 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lommel can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
In brief
The dugoutDries Wouters knocks on the manager’s door
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Sverre Nypan 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 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.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
Level with 91 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Lommel had all but put away. Lierse will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jason van Duiven did not need any: 7.95, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Rayan Atikallah 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.
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.
A season average of 7.04 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Lommel know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
At 20 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lommel will try again when the window opens; Sint-Truiden may not be selling by then.
The clubs have shaken hands with Sint-Truiden; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Lommel 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.
The offer from RWDM for Ralf Seuntjens 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.
Add another name to the list: Racing Genk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jason van Duiven. The answer from Lommel has not changed — yet.
Squad1 Feb 2027
At 20, Sverre Nypan is already the best thing here
An average of 7.01 in a first team he is several years too young for. Lommel have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Sverre Nypan 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rayan Atikallah 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. Club Brugge have kept their man, and Lommel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Lautaro López
Al-Hilal did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $30.4M for Rúben Neves, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rúben Neves has just signed for Feyenoord, and for once the answer mattered.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Rúben Neves 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 hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Robin van Duiven did not need any: 7.98, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Sho Araki 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.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Ralf Seuntjens again, and this time the name on the line is RWDM. Lommel are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Lommel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro López 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.
2‑0 against Shakhtar, 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.
Mika Mármol 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Rayan Atikallah is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 21 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.
Marked 8.25 — 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.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Feyenoord have paid $26.4M for Anatolii Trubin, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Renate waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Feyenoord is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Feyenoord asked and Young Boys said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Anatolii Trubin has, at Feyenoord, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Givairo Read did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Persita for Rayan Atikallah 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Feyenoord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Telstar have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Izu Onunta. The answer from Feyenoord has not changed — yet.
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.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sheffield Wednesday had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Feyenoord have gone to NEC with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Southampton for Raheem Sterling 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Feyenoord heard it as anything else.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $4.1M — a club that wants Gonzalo Crettaz enough to be asked twice.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Feyenoord have done the hard part with AZ, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Elijah Dijkstra 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Jong AZ know it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Hessel de Wit 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.
In brief
The dugoutKiyani Zeggen knocks on the manager's door