Marked for Samba Konaté
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2027
NEC do the business in Europe
2‑2. Continental football is where a club finds out what it actually is, and NEC came through the finding-out well against Djurgarden.
Market4 Oct 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at NEC heard it as anything else.
Match3 Oct 2027
No end in sight to NEC's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at NEC has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tjaronn Chery commits to NEC for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NEC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Gonzalo Crettaz
“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.
Match2 Oct 2027
Zwolle take the points off NEC
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Dennis Man beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.71 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Sep 2027
The match ball belongs to Dennis Man, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Tempers go at NEC
Tjaronn Chery 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.
Match25 Sep 2027
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between NEC and ADO Den Haag, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad27 Sep 2027
100 goals for the club, every one of them filed away in the memory of a supporter somewhere.
Squad27 Sep 2027
A row about effort at NEC
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Virgil Misidjan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Dennis Man was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.37. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Match25 Sep 2027
4‑4, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Sep 2027
A European night to remember for NEC
0‑0 against Trabzonspor, 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.
Match18 Sep 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑1 against Roda, and it could have been more.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
Dennis Man says NEC went back on their word
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.47, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad20 Sep 2027
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samba Konaté is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words exchanged at NEC
Tjaronn Chery 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.
Match18 Sep 2027
6 goals as NEC and Roda go for it
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between NEC and Roda, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
-
Squad
A row about effort at NEC
-
Player ratings
Ninety minutes of Carlton Morris at his very best
-
Match
Nobody wins at NEC
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
$165.3M was the most the club would pay and AS Roma 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Willi Orbán out for 33 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason RB Leipzig will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match16 Aug 2027
RB Leipzig refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 70 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.
Market16 Aug 2027
The chase for Yusuke Matsuo ended with $5.6M changing hands and VfL Wolfsburg out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad16 Aug 2027
At 22 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Yusuke Matsuo gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yusuke Matsuo has just signed for RB Leipzig, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Michael Olise and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom16 Aug 2027
RB Leipzig bank $933.3K from an old deal
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Andrija Maksimović is somebody else's player now, and $933.3K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
Market16 Aug 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Michael Olise signs something — a contract at RB Leipzig or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
“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 RB Leipzig, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The offer went to Bayern Munich this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from TSG Hoffenheim for Rômulo 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
RB Leipzig asked and Rayo Vallecano said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad3 Aug 2026
259 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market3 Aug 2026
RB Leipzig may not be able to give Rômulo what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rômulo wants continental football; whether RB Leipzig can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Willi Orbán and RB Leipzig agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Christopher Nkunku 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.