“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what De Graafschap can pretend not to have heard.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Gabriel Báez commits to De Graafschap for another 1 years.
Squad18 Nov 2030
Words at De Graafschap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim El Kadiri 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.
Joep Geneste 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Groningen in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Bas Babel is on it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Benjamin Van der Ackerveken has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at De Graafschap, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ibrahim El Kadiri 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Martin Stojcevic and De Graafschap agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Levi Schoppema was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at De Graafschap has been clear about where Giovanny Jesus de Pina stands, which is more than many ever get.
Heerenveen next, and one man in the De Graafschap dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at De Graafschap, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ibrahim El Kadiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Richard Scott after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Joep Geneste 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one De Graafschap will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
4 games now in a shape the manager was not using a month ago. Changing a formation is easy and keeping one is not, which is why the second of those is the part that tells you something.
Two goals and a mark of 8.87 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
2-6, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jade van Buren and De Graafschap agree another 4 years.
Match11 Sep 2030
Nobody could stop scoring
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about De Graafschap and Excelsior in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Excelsior were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at De Graafschap is running low.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Ibrahim El Kadiri 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 Levi Schoppema was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Soner Salih Yavuz and De Graafschap agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at De Graafschap, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jay Amour is on it.
40 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. De Graafschap lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what De Graafschap can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Ibrahim El Kadiri 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Roda had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. De Graafschap have done the hard part with Feyenoord, 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. Excelsior have kept their man, and De Graafschap go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 De Graafschap know it.
Ibrahim El Kadiri 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bas Babel is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Zsombor Riba 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at De Graafschap, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Caio Henrique is in the works
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Calvin De Jong has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” De Graafschap have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sam Bouwman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around De Graafschap the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Reuven Niemeijer commits to De Graafschap for another 2 years.
Squad7 May 2029
Zsombor Riba 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.