“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Groningen can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Groningen know it.
Squad29 Jan 2029
Words at Groningen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gyan de Regt 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.
Groningen asked and AZ said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Groningen told Marcos Leonardo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Ryan Metu 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.
3‑0 against Breidablik, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
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 7.83 for the rest of it.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Words at Groningen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gyan de Regt 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.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Marcos Leonardo
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcos Leonardo wants continental football; whether Groningen can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Oskar Zawada 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Groningen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Groningen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. De Graafschap defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Groningen can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 87. Utrecht had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
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 Oskar Zawada is on 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.
Position 15, 16 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
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.