42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zwolle lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A mark of 7.58, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad1 Nov 2027
5 new faces, and Zwolle 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ibrahim Cissoko has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
89 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zwolle lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zwolle, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 19 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.
Naj Lulić 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.
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 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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Rick Janssen chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“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 The request is on a desk at Zwolle, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zwolle have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.74 for the rest of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zwolle this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The fee is $4.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Den Bosch drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Anselmo García Mac Nulty 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.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Sebastian Karlsson Grach from Den Bosch for $4.2M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Zwolle training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Fichtinger 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and Zwolle 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.
The offer went to Den Bosch 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.
Heerenveen paid $1.8M and Zwolle took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zwolle this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Zwolle 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Naj Lulić 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.
32 appearances and 1 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Thijs Oosting has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
4 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 FC Lahti this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. FC Lahti told Izu Onunta something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Squad24 May 2027
The division's best last weekend was a FC Lahti man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Samuel Kroon was the best thing in any of them.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Lahti they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Momodou Sarr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Daniel Riihilahti 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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 Amir Belabid is on it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Lahti this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Three points for FC Lahti, 1‑0 the final word against Ekenäs IF in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Momodou Sarr 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.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.77 on the card, and the FC Lahti support went home talking about one name.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Markku Karjalainen, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, FC Lahti have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Lahti 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 Momodou Sarr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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 Markku Karjalainen to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
6 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.
Nobody at FC Lahti 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Joel Lehtonen’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Lahti needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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 FC Lahti, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Lahti they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Momodou Sarr. 2‑1 against SJK Akatemia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 18 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tim Karjalainen is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
At 19 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.
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at FC Lahti 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.
Romain Sans 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.
FC Lahti asked and Inter Turku 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 Momodou Sarr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and FC Lahti know which stage they are at.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yohan Cassubie signs something — a contract at FC Lahti or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 FC Lahti, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 18 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.
FC Lahti asked and Bayelsa United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. FC Lahti know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Joel Lehtonen signs something — a contract at FC Lahti or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Lahti they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Everything agreed with First Vienna, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
FC Lahti asked and Feyenoord 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 Momodou Sarr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Topias Inkinen 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.
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 Daniel Heikkinen is on it.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at FC Lahti would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and JäPS waiting with a shirt. Nobody at FC Lahti is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from HJK for Romain Sans 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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. José Müller was one of the reasons people came, and $320.0K does not replace that by itself.
“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; FC Lahti are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Osku Maukonen was one of the reasons people came, and $370.0K does not replace that by itself.
FC Lahti had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Feyenoord, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Romain Sans 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.
FC Lahti asked and Admira Wacker 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 Momodou Sarr was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at FC Lahti 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. FC Lahti have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Ilves keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Daniel Riihilahti 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.
FC Lahti have made the call to Feyenoord. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Something was said to Tòfol Montiel and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
A 3‑1 win over MVV Maastricht, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Fabiano Rust, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.02
A mark of 8.02 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Feyenoord hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
3 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.
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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. MVV Maastricht spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Feyenoord will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
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.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nacho Ferri. 2‑1 against Heerenveen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I watch every Feyenoord game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at TOP Oss runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Feyenoord will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Mika Mármol 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 18 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Feyenoord will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Nobody at Feyenoord 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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Bas De Ligt was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Feyenoord dressing room was either.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Feyenoord have no good answer.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Feyenoord will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Feyenoord hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Add another name to the list: Gloria Bistrița have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Izu Onunta. The answer from Feyenoord has not changed — yet.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Feyenoord will be judged on one thing only.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 7.54, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Feyenoord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shiloh 't Zand 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.
In brief
The dugoutGonçalo Borges dropped after a run of poor form
The offer went to Inter 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.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Feyenoord offered $4.3M; AZ said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The offer went to Heerenveen 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.0M — a club that wants Bernt Klaverboer enough to be asked twice.
The phone has started ringing about Gaoussou Diarra again, and this time the name on the line is Emmen. Feyenoord are listening politely and promising nothing.