53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FC Eindhoven can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Sven Simons 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.
Edoly Lukoki 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 Eindhoven have made the call to FC Nordsjaelland. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
61 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Eindhoven lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Eindhoven can pretend not to have heard.
56 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sven Simons 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.
Nobody at FC Eindhoven 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.
68 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Eindhoven lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
FC Eindhoven 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fillip Jenssen Riise was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Eindhoven, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 FC Eindhoven have no good answer.
78 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Eindhoven lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Eindhoven have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Heerenveen keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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 Eindhoven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. FC Eindhoven will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sven Simons was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Everything agreed with Heerenveen, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Dyon Dorenbosch 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sven Simons 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.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Víctor Penayo and FC Eindhoven agree another 3 years.
93 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Eindhoven lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Dyon Dorenbosch 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.
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.
Squad31 May 2027
5 new faces, and FC Eindhoven 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dyon Dorenbosch trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 100 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.
Dyon Dorenbosch and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Sven Simons 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Eindhoven, and both men came out saying it was fine.
108 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. FC Eindhoven lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 7 on 64 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Devon Koswal, and the manager let it.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sven Simons 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Owen Renfrum 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.
The dugout17 May 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Nathan Dijks to a room that had heard them before.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
The dugoutRangelo Janga is not enjoying his job description
The words a physio says slowly. 116 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.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.04, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
A season average of 7.23 with 11 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Mikael Anderson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Mikael Anderson had FC Eindhoven level again within 4 minutes, and Vitesse never got to play with a lead at all.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
123 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 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.
“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 Eindhoven are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marked 8.20 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with AGF, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
A 3‑2 win over MVV Maastricht, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
FC Eindhoven asked and FC Nordsjaelland said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Kevin van Veen 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Farouq Limouri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Dyon Dorenbosch 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.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
2 academy players handed senior numbers at FC Eindhoven
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jeroen Babel 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jeroen De Vrij is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daan Huisman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Eindhoven, another week without a signature from Rangelo Janga.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.