Marked for Jaygo van Ommeren
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout10 May 2027
Jesper Karlsson: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Utrecht have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The dugout10 May 2027
Tobias Lauritsen has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Utrecht 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.
Market10 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Loan watch10 May 2027
32 starts now, an average of 6.79, and the team sheet at Go Ahead Eagles has stopped being a question. Exactly what everybody signed up for.
Match10 May 2027
Utrecht have something to play for
Position 4 on 65 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
Loan watch10 May 2027
“I am playing every week here and I feel like a footballer again.” 15 appearances and 5 goals on loan, and a decision waiting in the summer.
Loan watch10 May 2027
31 starts and a season average of 6.90. The loan is doing exactly what it was arranged to do.
Loan watch10 May 2027
The goals keep arriving from Zidane Iqbal’s exile
5 goals in 15 games at Emmen — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jaygo van Ommeren is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mees Hilgers was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Melle Meulensteen 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 dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Mathis Suray
“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.
Market29 Mar 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson signs something — a contract at Go Ahead Eagles or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
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.
Match29 Mar 2027
Continental football is in reach for Go Ahead Eagles
47 points from position 6. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Go Ahead Eagles. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market18 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Jofre Torrents, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
The deal with Willem II is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad18 Jan 2027
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Melle Meulensteen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets18 Jan 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.
Market18 Jan 2027
Add another name to the list: Carrarese have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Oskar Sivertsen. The answer from Go Ahead Eagles has not changed — yet.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aske Adelgaard and Go Ahead Eagles agree another 4 years.
Match16 Jan 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad4 Jan 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Go Ahead Eagles will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market4 Jan 2027
Luca Plogmann hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Go Ahead Eagles can pretend not to have heard.
Match2 Jan 2027
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Jofre Torrents and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Go Ahead Eagles training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mees Hilgers 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.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Match2 Jan 2027
Three points for Go Ahead Eagles, 2‑0 the final word against Zwolle in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market4 Jan 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match28 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Excelsior spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mees Hilgers was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match31 Oct 2026
Volendam made Go Ahead Eagles work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes of Victor Edvardsen at his very best
Marked 8.24. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Go Ahead Eagles.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Melle Meulensteen 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.
Market2 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Go Ahead Eagles, another week without a signature from Mees Hilgers.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A mark of 7.70, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Defensive actions: 16. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2026
Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson 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 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mees Hilgers was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match17 Oct 2026
AZ left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 34, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 0‑2 Kenneth De Vrij left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Go Ahead Eagles are still strangers to each other
6 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
12 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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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.
Market19 Oct 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
NEC come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Go Ahead Eagles did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
4 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Robin Aké 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Teun Aké is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Wout De Roon 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Melle Meulensteen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Jong Utrecht have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mees Eppink in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jong Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Jong Utrecht will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Mees Eppink gets it from the manager
“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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market10 Aug 2026
Jong Utrecht have made Mees Eppink available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.