88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 9.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
113 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 2, 83 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The offer from Excelsior for Tiago Nascimento was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
406 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The phone has started ringing about Patrick Dost again, and this time the name on the line is Excelsior. Ajax are listening politely and promising nothing.
The words a physio says slowly. 128 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 Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 The request is on a desk at Ajax, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
In brief
SquadHamza Igamane falls out with a teammate over standards
The offer from Excelsior for Patrick Dost was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Tiago Nascimento has come up in conversations Ajax were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad28 Jun 2038
Hamza Igamane 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.
Nobody at Ajax will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.16 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“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 Ajax, and it is not being withdrawn.
Youri Baas 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Oscar Gloukh 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Ajax, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Cambuur for Patrick Dost was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hamza Igamane 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.
The name of Jeroen De Ligt has come up in conversations Ajax were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer from ADO Den Haag for Patrick Dost was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ajax they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad30 Mar 2037
Mika Godts 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.
Marked 8.68 — 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.
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.