A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. ADO Den Haag will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kayden Wolff is living that version at ADO Den Haag, and it tends to show in the first month.
Everything agreed with Excelsior, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sion is saying, and nobody at ADO Den Haag is enjoying the guessing.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Sergiño Dest 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.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Jesse Bal’s exile
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ADO Den Haag this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Luka Reischl 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.
“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; ADO Den Haag are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout27 Sep 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Rick De Jong to a room that had heard them before.
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.
The offer from Las Palmas for Jur Schipper was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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 ADO Den Haag, and it is not being withdrawn.
ADO Den Haag offered $1.3M; AZ said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Sergiño Dest 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ADO Den Haag this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Juho Kilo 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.
“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; ADO Den Haag are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at ADO Den Haag 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.
Sergiño Dest 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Matěj Šín 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.
Nobody at ADO Den Haag 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.
A brace, and Jalen Hawkins takes the afternoon — 9.30
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jalen Hawkins provided it, and the 9.30 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Sergiño Dest 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matěj Šín was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
“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; ADO Den Haag are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Rick De Jong could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Milan Hokke
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around ADO Den Haag people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Yannick Eduardo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.60
A mark of 7.60 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ADO Den Haag this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jerónimo Velásquez has just signed for ADO Den Haag, and for once the answer mattered.
Matěj Šín scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Roda, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Matěj Šín 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Matěj Šín has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.