19 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.
Thijmen Blokzijl 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luuk De Ligt has just signed for Groningen, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad2 Jul 2040
Words at Groningen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maas Willemsen 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.
He is 19, and nobody at Groningen signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
26 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.
Add another name to the list: Zwolle have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mika Pieterse. The answer from Groningen has not changed — yet.
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.
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 Groningen 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Groningen and Willem II in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Landry Sergeant obliged against Vitesse. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Groningen.
108 minutes played. Landry Sergeant found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Vitesse went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Landry Sergeant provided it, and the 8.50 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
12 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad14 Nov 2039
Words at Groningen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thijmen Blokzijl 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.
Deacon van der Klaauw 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maxwell Rodrigues will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Groningen the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
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.
Marked 7.56 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Groningen will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Demyan Oosterhuis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Groningen the goodbyes have quietly begun.