“The easiest signature of my career.” Guy Dezent and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ido Cohen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Maccabi Petach Tikva would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
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 Yuval Kretzo is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nowaf Bazia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form 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 The request is on a desk at Maccabi Petach Tikva, and it is not being withdrawn.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yuval Ranon has just signed for Maccabi Petach Tikva, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omer Shirazi 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Avi Weissman after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Richard has his answer from Maccabi Petach Tikva; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The captaincy has been taken off José Cortés. Maccabi Petach Tikva will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ido Cohen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Idan Dahan 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 easiest signature of my career.” Niv Antman and Maccabi Petach Tikva agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Avi Weissman could afford to be generous.
“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.
Heerenveen paid $1.4M and Vitesse took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
$220.0K was the most the club would pay and Cambuur 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.
Vitesse asked and San Diego Football Club said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The phone has started ringing about Maximilian Brüll again, and this time the name on the line is Heerenveen. Vitesse are listening politely and promising nothing.
Vitesse have made the call to Hapoel Beer Sheva. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all 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 Vitesse can pretend not to have heard.
$2.1M on the table at Feyenoord. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Warleson 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Vitesse are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Vitesse go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Dylan Tevreden had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
“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 Vitesse, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Vitesse can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Tsuyoshi Watanabe 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.
Feyenoord wanted more than $150.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Vitesse training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorrit Hendrix 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.
Tsuyoshi Watanabe 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Vitesse training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jorrit Hendrix 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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
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 0‑1 Quincy Frimpong left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorrit Hendrix was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 19 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thijs Muller. 2‑0 against Jong AZ, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Vitesse know it.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Quincy Frimpong has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sol Sidibé did not need any: 7.80, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mohamed Abdellah is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorrit Hendrix 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; Vitesse are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Vitesse lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
6 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.
7.49, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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 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.
“I watch every Vitesse game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bhayangkara Presisi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Vitesse people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Pontus Dahbo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jorrit Hendrix 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. Den Bosch have kept their man, and Vitesse go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.