Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daan Hulleman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Eindhoven the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Everybody at FC Eindhoven saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad27 Sep 2032
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Pinochet 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. FC Eindhoven told Sem Vink something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around FC Eindhoven they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Gabriel Pinochet 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Christopher McVey 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.
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.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with RKC Waalwijk, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Twente have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Daan Hulleman again, and this time the name on the line is Telstar. FC Eindhoven are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Pinochet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid FC Eindhoven $466.7K. Dyon Dorenbosch left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at FC Eindhoven, another week without a signature from Nikolai Toft Noreng.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” FC Eindhoven have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Eindhoven is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. FC Eindhoven have done the hard part with Feyenoord, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Christopher McVey and FC Eindhoven agree another 2 years.
“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; FC Eindhoven are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Position 14 on 34 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
3 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.
Givendro Mercera 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Givendro Mercera. 3‑1 against VVV-Venlo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sven Blummel’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and FC Eindhoven needing him to play as if none of it matters.
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Eindhoven lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 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.
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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
15 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Fortuna Sittard were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around FC Eindhoven people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 29. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom2 Feb 2032
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 10 gone
That is the business done at FC Eindhoven 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AZ is saying, and nobody at FC Eindhoven is enjoying the guessing.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Givendro Mercera. 3‑1 against Fortuna Sittard, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
FC Eindhoven asked and Feyenoord said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 FC Eindhoven, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christopher McVey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Eindhoven will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Eindhoven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Eindhoven is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Eindhoven will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
Something was said to Sheddy Barglan and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Eindhoven will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Eindhoven can pretend not to have heard.
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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Eindhoven will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
0‑3 to Jong PSV, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Christopher McVey 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 Gabriel Pinochet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody at FC Eindhoven saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Boardroom24 Nov 2031
Nobody left the FC Eindhoven dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason FC Eindhoven will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daan Hulleman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around FC Eindhoven the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Nov 2031
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christopher McVey 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.
Faik Amrane 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Daan Hulleman has his answer from FC Eindhoven; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sven Blummel signs something — a contract at FC Eindhoven or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Jong PSV in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
The dugoutJayden Sitabi knocks on the manager’s door
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Eindhoven will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad10 Nov 2031
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Christopher McVey 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The deal with ADO Den Haag 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.
Marked 7.70. 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.
6 goals in one match, Sem Vink on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of FC Eindhoven and Heracles.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christopher McVey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. NEC have kept their man, and FC Eindhoven go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gabriel Pinochet 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
The dugout18 Aug 2031
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑4 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Marked 8.14 — 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.
Squad28 Apr 2031
Words at FC Eindhoven training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Pinochet 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at FC Eindhoven pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout28 Apr 2031
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Eindhoven will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at FC Eindhoven is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Givendro Mercera 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 Gabriel Pinochet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Level with 87 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon FC Eindhoven had all but put away. Volendam will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. FC Eindhoven will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Eindhoven this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout3 Mar 2031
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Something was said to Gabriel Pinochet and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.