Marked for Yannick Gerritsen
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jun 2027
Georginio Wijnaldum 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.
Boardroom14 Jun 2027
Vitesse still without a manager
13 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Rossi knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rossi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Vitesse may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market12 Apr 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Vitesse, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Georginio Wijnaldum 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Apr 2027
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.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Defensive actions: 26, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Twente may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Twente
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Marked 9.15 — 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
7 goals and a season average of 7.46. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match3 Apr 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Mees Hilgers’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Twente.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Marked 8.46 — 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.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A defender's afternoon for Stav Lemkin
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
Squad25 Jan 2027
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.
Market25 Jan 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Guidonia Montecelio is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad25 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Guidonia Montecelio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match23 Jan 2027
1‑2 to Ternana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
147% of the income goes out in wages at Guidonia Montecelio
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Michele Avella
“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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market25 Jan 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gabriele Bernardotto signs something — a contract at Guidonia Montecelio or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.