3‑0 against AEL Larisa, 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.
Position 3, 74 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZ they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Woltemade 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.34, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Matěj Šín
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” AZ have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 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.
Match23 Feb 2036
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for AZ. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Excelsior had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AZ people have started saying his name in the past tense.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AZ can pretend not to have heard.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” AZ may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom4 Feb 2036
AZ close the window on a squad of their own making
7 in and 12 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Feyenoord; AZ go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mexx Meerdink had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer from Barcelona for Federico Valverde 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Dinamo Zagreb; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AZ have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 13 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $9.9M of what AZ paid for Stanis Idumbo is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AZ is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Ajax; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Marked 7.86. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
“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; AZ are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Two goals and a mark of 8.23 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Federico Valverde 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZ they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nick Woltemade 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.
17 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Match28 Oct 2035
Another one collected away from home
11 on the bounce on the road for AZ. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
2‑0 against First Vienna, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AZ is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
1 for Kees Smit, marked 7.95, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Mexx Meerdink 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 Nick Woltemade was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Mexx Meerdink will call it something else in private.
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.54 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AZ heard it as anything else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AZ is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AZ lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
8 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
$21.3M on the table at Chelsea. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and ADO Den Haag waiting with a shirt. Nobody at AZ is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
6 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
Deadline passes with 24 signed and 26 gone
That is the business done at AZ until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nick Woltemade was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutKees Smit back under a manager who knows him
Done, and with games to spare. Next season has floodlit nights against clubs from other countries in it, and the accounts have a line they did not have last year.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AZ they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and AZ have had the benefit of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sami Bouhoudane 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 AZ 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AZ, and both men came out saying it was fine.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AZ heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sami Bouhoudane 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 AZ, another week without a signature from Niek Schiks.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Niek Schiks trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Marked 8.43 — 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 sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. AZ will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
Player ratingsThe afternoon ran through Stanis Idumbo
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. AZ have lost him in all but the paperwork.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AZ can pretend not to have heard.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oscar Gloukh 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AZ this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Feyenoord asked and Lazio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Feyenoord have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer from Groningen for Alejandro Francés 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Vitesse; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The phone has started ringing about Wassim Bouziane again, and this time the name on the line is Heerenveen. Feyenoord are listening politely and promising nothing.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.6M — a club that wants Alexandre Stanić enough to be asked twice.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Words at Feyenoord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Givairo Read 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.
Fabio Miretti 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Feyenoord have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$2.4M was the most the club would pay and Groningen were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The name of Alejandro Francés has come up in conversations Feyenoord were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Feyenoord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cambuur have kept their man, and Feyenoord go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Givairo Read was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Nick Woltemade is on it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Feyenoord people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The chase for Tyrese Hall ended with $3.0M changing hands and Utrecht out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Feyenoord asked and Heerenveen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nick Woltemade 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tyrese Hall has just signed for Feyenoord, and for once the answer mattered.