“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 The request is on a desk at Sparta Rotterdam, and it is not being withdrawn.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Daley De Jong has agreed terms with Emmen for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sparta Rotterdam, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Rotterdam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Patrick Xavi Simons has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Patrick Berg 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.
“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; Sparta Rotterdam are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Lass is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Rotterdam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sparta Rotterdam can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad18 Feb 2036
Darrell Addo 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.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sparta Rotterdam can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sparta Rotterdam will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Sparta Rotterdam heard it as anything else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sparta Rotterdam have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom4 Feb 2036
Sparta Rotterdam close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Shunsuke Mito and Sparta Rotterdam agree another 2 years.
Patrick Berg 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 deal with PSV is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. AZ have kept their man, and Sparta Rotterdam go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sparta Rotterdam have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sparta Rotterdam will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Rotterdam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vitesse have kept their man, and Sparta Rotterdam go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Darrell Addo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sparta Rotterdam can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
In brief
Boardroom95% of the income goes out in wages at Sparta Rotterdam
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sparta Rotterdam will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Marco Promes did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Noah Paolo. 2‑1 against Go Ahead Eagles, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PSV will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout29 Oct 2035
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Ryan Frimpong chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid PSV $11.0K. Patrick Xavi Simons left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Cambuur next, and one man in the PSV dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the PSV squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
7 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Sparta Rotterdam can tell you which week it ends in.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Rotterdam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Amadou Ba 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.
“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.
The dugout29 Oct 2035
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Interim Coach chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sparta Rotterdam, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Successful dribbles: 12. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Patrick Berg 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sparta Rotterdam has been clear about where Marco Promes stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Steve Biko Omollo and Sparta Rotterdam agree another 2 years.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sparta Rotterdam, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sparta Rotterdam know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Sparta Rotterdam will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Sparta Rotterdam has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
0‑4 to PSV, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sparta Rotterdam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Xavi Simons trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. PSV will try again when the window opens; Asante Kotoko may not be selling by then.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at PSV, another week without a signature from Lukas Jungwirth.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Denzel Clasie and PSV agree another 5 years.
Squad10 Sep 2035
7 new faces, and PSV are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at PSV 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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Alexander Isak has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sparta Rotterdam is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Sparta Rotterdam had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at PSV, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Roman Murcy has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Sparta Rotterdam have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Sparta Rotterdam go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sparta Rotterdam know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sparta Rotterdam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Sparta Rotterdam asked and Feyenoord said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Marco Promes has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marco Promes. 2‑0 against Willem II, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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; Sparta Rotterdam are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“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 Sparta Rotterdam, and it is not being withdrawn.
Patrick Berg 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 Sparta Rotterdam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
12 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Sparta Rotterdam know it.
The offer from Fortuna Sittard for Alexander Isak 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 right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
PSV have gone to Millonarios with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around PSV they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nobody at PSV 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.
“I watch every PSV game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sparta Rotterdam runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Beni Mukendi is somebody else's player now, and $433.3K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
Four paragraphs on the club website, none of them about football. The board thanked him, wished him well, and had the search under way before the page went up.
The coaching staff has emptied out entirely and there was nobody internal to promote, so the club has appointed a name almost none of its supporters will recognise. Clubs recover from this; none of them enjoy explaining it.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Noel Reit is living that version at Sparta Rotterdam, and it tends to show in the first month.
Amadou Ba 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Sparta Rotterdam go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Interim Coach leaves with $33.8K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Jong PSV they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Arnaut Strootman 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.
Jong Ajax next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 7 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Arnaut Strootman signs something — a contract at Jong PSV or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.47 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jong PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 18 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Ramiz Zerrouki 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Denzel De Roon has come out of that comparison in the side, and Jong PSV have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Jong PSV has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jong PSV, and both men came out saying it was fine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against MVV Maastricht in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Jong PSV know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Jong PSV was different afterwards.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Patrick Xavi Simons provided it, and the 8.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings4 Dec 2034
Marco Timber, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.41
A mark of 8.41 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Arnaut Strootman is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Patrick Xavi Simons is 18, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Luiz Henrique has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Jong PSV know, and have known for weeks.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jong PSV this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Jong PSV know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jong PSV, and both men came out saying it was fine.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Jong PSV could ask drops and the wages Teun De Roon can ask rise.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Jong PSV supporters have already started telling it.
Ramiz Zerrouki 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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Jong Ajax held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Jong PSV answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Jong PSV will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Jong PSV know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The first defeat in 8 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against AZ; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Nobody at PSV 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 dugout28 Aug 2034
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Ryan Frimpong to a room that had heard them before.