“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Vitesse can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Vitesse they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Naoufal Bannis 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.
Squad14 May 2029
Daley Blind 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oskar Zawada trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kevin van Ouytsel signs something — a contract at Vitesse or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The mood at Vitesse has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Alexander Büttner 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.
Nobody at Vitesse 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexander Büttner trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Diego Enríquez signs something — a contract at Vitesse or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Alexander Büttner 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 Chofis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.