The NEC Chronicle
Squad16 Aug 2038
A knee injury of the worst kind for Filip Janssen
70 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NEC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match14 Aug 2038
NEC let it slip despite Kodai Sano
Kodai Sano had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Groningen were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Player ratings16 Aug 2038
Kodai Sano scores twice — 8.87
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.
Match14 Aug 2038
No clean sheets in sight for NEC
8 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Player ratings16 Aug 2038
Sami Ouaissa, 33, rolls back the years — 8.62
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.62 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match14 Aug 2038
No end in sight to NEC's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at NEC has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom16 Aug 2038
Graduation day at NEC
11 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Words at NEC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tony Rölke 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.
Squad16 Aug 2038
The manager makes an example of Brayann Pereira
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
In brief
- Squad Dylano van Niftrik in a row with a teammate
- Market One of our own: Tim Babel joins the NEC first team
- Market One of our own: Rick Frimpong joins the NEC first team