The words a physio says slowly. 56 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Willem II this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
124 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Willem II lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Samuel Bamba 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.
In brief
SquadJustin Hoogma falls out with a teammate over standards
BoardroomThe Willem II production line keeps running
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Willem II this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Jul 2037
Words at Willem II training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anass Zarrouk 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jens Mathijsen signs something — a contract at Willem II or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.