Marked for Imaad Hendricks
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match27 Oct 2029
The wait goes on for Esbjerg
19 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.
Match29 Oct 2029
Every point is an argument now for Esbjerg
Position 12 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
Up for the corner, and Davide De Marino delivers — 7.81
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Davide De Marino scored, was marked 7.81, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Market29 Oct 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Esbjerg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Bartosz Slisz 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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Lasse Vigen 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.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
The game went through Mikail Maden — 7.02
Marked 7.02 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Squad29 Oct 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Imaad Hendricks commits to Esbjerg for another 4 years.
Squad29 Oct 2029
“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; Esbjerg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match6 Oct 2029
The wait goes on for Esbjerg
16 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.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Daniel Gadegaard damages knee ligaments — 29 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
The terraces8 Oct 2029
The mood at Esbjerg 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.
Market8 Oct 2029
Lau Overgaard hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Esbjerg can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Words exchanged at Esbjerg
Bartosz Slisz 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.
Squad8 Oct 2029
A row about effort at Esbjerg
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lasse Vigen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad8 Oct 2029
Julius Lucena makes the team of the month
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout8 Oct 2029
The manager makes an example of Imaad Hendricks
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market8 Oct 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Sep 2029
66 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Esbjerg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match1 Sep 2029
11 matches without a win for Esbjerg
The run now stands at 11, and the questions being asked around Esbjerg are no longer polite ones.
The dugout3 Sep 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Esbjerg may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match3 Sep 2029
Every point is an argument now for Esbjerg
Position 11 and 3 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Transfer targets3 Sep 2029
Esbjerg and FC Midtjylland have settled on $2.0M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Deadline passes with 29 signed and 28 gone
That is the business done at Esbjerg 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.
Transfer targets3 Sep 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. OB have kept their man, and Esbjerg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Sep 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Petar Prindzhev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Esbjerg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets3 Sep 2029
Hobro wanted more than $520.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jun 2028
Paul Izzo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Randers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Randers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wessel Dammers 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 dugout19 Jun 2028
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 dugout19 Jun 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Randers, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market19 Jun 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Randers know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market19 Jun 2028
2 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Randers could get for him.
Market19 Jun 2028
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Anton Collatz leaves Randers the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Market19 Jun 2028
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Imaad Hendricks leaves Randers the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Squad19 Jun 2028
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.