The Dender Gazette
Market2 Dec 2030
Weverton asks to leave Dender
“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.
Market2 Dec 2030
Noah De Ridder is on his way
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dender is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad2 Dec 2030
A falling-out at Dender
Antoine Colassin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market2 Dec 2030
One of our own: Eden De Bruyne joins the Dender first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Eden De Bruyne is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market2 Dec 2030
Kevin Kompany steps up from the Dender academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Kevin Kompany has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Words at Dender training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vincent Burlet 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.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Home is on Jhon Azcárate's mind
“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; Dender are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Too much change too quickly at Dender
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout2 Dec 2030
Saad Agouzoul gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
In brief
- The dugout A promise honoured at Dender
- The dugout Rayan el Miloudi has become a man the manager trusts
- The dugout Andrew Jung has been promised minutes