Marked for Gilany Daalman
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces23 Aug 2032
Anger at Emmen spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Match21 Aug 2032
8 matches without a win for Emmen
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Emmen are no longer polite ones.
Market23 Aug 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2032
The deal with Vitesse is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad23 Aug 2032
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Emmen know it.
Squad23 Aug 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Emmen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom23 Aug 2032
Still no name above the door at Emmen
Day 14 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Squad23 Aug 2032
A row about effort at Emmen
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Filip Bačkulja was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2032
Emmen asked and NEC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces28 Jul 2031
The mood at Emmen 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.
Market28 Jul 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Emmen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market28 Jul 2031
Kevin Norder 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 Emmen can pretend not to have heard.
Market28 Jul 2031
The name of Milan Hoek has come up in conversations Emmen were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad28 Jul 2031
Words exchanged at Emmen
Milan Hoek 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.
Squad28 Jul 2031
Reda Boultam 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.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2031
A loan enquiry to PSV: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2031
Almere City have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces5 May 2031
The mood at Emmen 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.
Market5 May 2031
Driven Drenthe has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Emmen they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market5 May 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Emmen can pretend not to have heard.
Match3 May 2031
7 unbeaten for Emmen
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Emmen did not have in the autumn.
Squad5 May 2031
Kian Visser 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 Emmen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 May 2031
Words at Emmen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Flor Van Den Eynden 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 terraces5 May 2031
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match3 May 2031
Three points for Emmen, 1‑0 the final word against VVV-Venlo in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market5 May 2031
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Emmen, another week without a signature from Reda Boultam.