The Excelsior Gazette
Squad5 Oct 2026
Stijn van Gassel keeps Excelsior in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 13 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match1 Oct 2026
Excelsior come up short in Europe
0‑2 away to the standard of Dynamo Kyiv. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The step up is real for Givendro Mercera
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Szymon Włodarczyk 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A muscle injury and 14 days out for Levi Baars
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Excelsior will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
No hiding place for Rick Meissen
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rick Meissen, and the manager let it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The form table has caught Aymen Sliti
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Match4 Oct 2026
Szymon Włodarczyk rescues a point for Excelsior
It needed Szymon Włodarczyk to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Groningen, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Szymon Włodarczyk has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Excelsior 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.
In brief
- The dugout The view from the dugout
- Player ratings Aymen Sliti runs at them all day
- Market Isaque Sousa Monte leaves for nothing