Marked for Mats Egbring
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Jul 2027
The offer from Utrecht for Oliver Braude 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
The fee is $2.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Twente drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market5 Jul 2027
Business is business: Mats Egbring goes
Twente paid $1.0M and Heerenveen took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Ringo Meerveld and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcus Linday commits to Heerenveen for another 4 years.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A row about effort at Heerenveen
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacob Trenskow was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Jul 2027
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aris Thessaloniki have kept their man, and Heerenveen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
8 new boys at the Heerenveen academy
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Jun 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Joël Drommel reports back to Twente with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad28 Jun 2027
At 21 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
The medical room confirms 48 days on the sidelines for Myron Boadu, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad28 Jun 2027
A row about effort at Twente
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ramiz Zerrouki was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market28 Jun 2027
NEC paid $280.0K and Twente took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Myron Boadu has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Lars Unnerstall has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Twente 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.
Loan watch28 Jun 2027
The goals keep arriving from Younes Taha’s exile
9 goals in 30 games at Groningen — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Twente updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Heerenveen
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ringo Meerveld 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.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match5 Dec 2026
A 1‑0 win over Excelsior, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Thomas Beelen 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.
Match7 Dec 2026
Halfway: Heerenveen sit in position 12
21 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Marten Klaassen kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Luca Oyen wants out of the dugout
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Heerenveen will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Mitchel Bakker out for 99 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Heerenveen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match19 Sep 2026
1‑5 to Feyenoord, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad21 Sep 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match19 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Heerenveen
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Heerenveen are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Ringo Meerveld and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Heerenveen and Feyenoord in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Heerenveen 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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vasilis Zagaritis, and the manager let it.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Heerenveen dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Player ratings
Mats Egbring runs at them all day
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Looking ahead
A reunion for Remco Balk
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Heerenveen have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A move Mitchel Bakker would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mitchel Bakker is living that version at Heerenveen, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Utrecht for Sam Kersten 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Marcus Linday has come up in conversations Heerenveen were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Feyenoord, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ringo Meerveld and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Heerenveen
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jacob Trenskow was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The offer went to Feyenoord 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dirk Proper and Heerenveen agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Dylan Vente 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Heerenveen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ringo Meerveld 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Yael Trepy is in the works
Heerenveen have made the call to Cagliari. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Ringo Meerveld knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Heerenveen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Mats Egbring has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Heerenveen.