Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
VVV-Venlo will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Julius Kade has pre-agreed a move to Emmen, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Emmen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
5‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
A brace, and Finn Stokkers takes the afternoon — 9.84
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Finn Stokkers provided it, and the 9.84 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Alexandre Penetra 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Everink 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Emmen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Luca Everink 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.
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Marked 8.17 — 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.
Marked 8.15 — 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Emmen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jeroen Dijks after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Emmen told Siegert Baartmans something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 20 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.
Luuk Koopmans 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 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.
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.
ADO Den Haag arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Torben Rhein 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against ADO Den Haag in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Emmen will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7.97, 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.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Emmen will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7.96, 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.
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.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Emmen lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joe Brito and Emmen agree another 3 years.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jeroen Dijks to a room that had heard them before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yvandro Borges Sanches trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Jorrit Hendrix 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Joshua Mukeh 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.
11 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 dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Jeroen Dijks to a room that had heard them before.
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Finn Stokkers’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Emmen needing him to play as if none of it matters.