The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Groningen people have started saying his name in the past tense.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Groningen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Groningen, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Groningen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Ajax is saying, and nobody at Groningen is enjoying the guessing.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
0‑3 against Ajax, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The terraces12 Jan 2032
Groningen are taken apart by Ajax — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Add another name to the list: Feyenoord have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jacob Trenskow. The answer from Groningen has not changed — yet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Groningen can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Groningen they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Mexx Meerdink 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jacob Trenskow has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Groningen can pretend not to have heard.
Mexx Meerdink 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Groningen have done the hard part with PSV, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Words at Groningen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyrell Malacia 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mohamed Hmamouch is living that version at Groningen, and it tends to show in the first month.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Groningen lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Groningen can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings29 Dec 2031
A brace, and Mexx Meerdink takes the afternoon — 9.39
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mexx Meerdink provided it, and the 9.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Groningen is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Groningen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Words at Groningen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tyrell Malacia 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.