“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
0‑2 against Borussia Dortmund. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
1 for Jaygo van Ommeren, marked 7.38, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaydou Youssouf 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Utrecht people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ángel Alarcón was one of the reasons people came, and $32.2M does not replace that by itself.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Utrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
$330.0K on the table at Vitesse. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Björn Menzo 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Utrecht will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Squad17 Jul 2028
11 new faces, and Utrecht 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
17 games, 1 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Utrecht now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
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 Utrecht 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Emirhan Demircan has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The one award nobody else on the pitch can win goes to Vasilis Barkas, on 16 clean sheets across the season. Keepers wait a career for a season like it.
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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alonzo Engwanda trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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 Utrecht 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Utrecht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vasilis Barkas signs something — a contract at Utrecht or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Utrecht would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“For the first time in years I am picked because somebody wants me in the team.” VVV-Venlo suits him; the awkward conversation belongs to Utrecht, and the summer will force it.
In brief
Loan watchKevin Gadellaa’s loan is measured in nothing happening
Position 5 on 60 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Player ratings1 May 2028
Matyáš Havelka, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.15
A mark of 8.15 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
14 combined actions and 7.52. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
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.
He is 22 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.82 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
He is 23 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Sparta Rotterdam spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Squad24 Apr 2028
A muscle injury sidelines Noël Beulens for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Utrecht will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Marked 8.38 — 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.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Ángel Alarcón
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
0‑2 to Ajax, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Cissoko 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 dugout17 Apr 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Robin Stengs left the room before anybody could ask which.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Matisse Didden.
1‑4 to AZ, 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Utrecht can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“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.
Zaydou Youssouf 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Björn Menzo 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Utrecht can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jurgen Ekkelenkamp is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alonzo Engwanda trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
51 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
“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 Utrecht will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
19 appearances at Sparta Rotterdam and the goals have stopped going in. Utrecht lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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 Utrecht know it.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Cissoko 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.
Nobody at Utrecht 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 dugout13 Mar 2028
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.” Robin Stengs chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matyáš Havelka did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Rafik el Arguioui scored, was marked 7.35, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Melih Junuzov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 33 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Utrecht is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
The goal that put PSV ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Utrecht equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miliano Jonathans 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Utrecht, and 0 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Utrecht had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Utrecht asked and Vitesse said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Utrecht have gone to Sparta Rotterdam 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.
Jerry St. Juste 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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ángel Alarcón 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Cissoko 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Jan Bürger is in the works
Player ratingsNobody on the pitch touched Ángel Alarcón
The dugoutVasilis Barkas has become a man the manager trusts
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Twelve yards and the whole ground holding its breath, and it did not go in. He will put his name down for the next one, which is the only thing to do.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Cissoko 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Noah Ohio provided it, and the 9.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
A brace, and Ángel Alarcón takes the afternoon — 8.50
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ángel Alarcón provided it, and the 8.50 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Yoann Cathline was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 5‑0, Robin Stengs could afford to be generous.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Utrecht know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Utrecht would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Zwolle next, and one man in the Utrecht dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Utrecht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 Utrecht will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Davy van den Berg has written the date down.
0‑1 against FC Nordsjaelland, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: David Min. 2‑0 against Fortuna Sittard, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alonzo Engwanda, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davy van den Berg 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jurgen Ekkelenkamp is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
1‑2 against FC Nordsjaelland, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
7.51, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Utrecht pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Zaydou Youssouf. 3‑1 against Heracles, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ángel Alarcón 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.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
Ángel Alarcón was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.42. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Jesse van de Haar 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
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.
In brief
The dugoutVasilis Barkas is still being punished for one mistake
0‑1 away to the standard of Racing Genk. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Vasilis Barkas 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 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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Robin Stengs left the room before anybody could ask which.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Matisse Didden.
In brief
The dugoutJerry St. Juste has become a man the manager trusts
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
10 combined actions and 7.00. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utrecht will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 22 arrived, 16 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Utrecht heard it as anything else.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.5M — a club that wants Franck Evina enough to be asked twice.
Jerry St. Juste 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. Emmen have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Davy van den Berg 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.
In brief
Squad9 new faces, and Utrecht are still learning each other
The dugoutMitchel Bakker has become a man the manager trusts
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht 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 Utrecht can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Vasilis Barkas is on it.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Davy van den Berg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Utrecht 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alonzo Engwanda trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Utrecht that is a harder question to answer.
Add another name to the list: VVV-Venlo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Siebe Horemans. The answer from Utrecht has not changed — yet.
Vasilis Barkas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yoann Cathline 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
11 new faces, and Utrecht 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 Utrecht 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yoann Cathline 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.
38 games, 6 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Utrecht now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Miliano Jonathans has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
9 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Vasilis Barkas is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Noah Ohio trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Still no offer on the table, and Jesse van de Haar’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The offer from VVV-Venlo for Siebe Horemans 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Utrecht can pretend not to have heard.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marius Broholm was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ADO Den Haag have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Utrecht would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Excelsior have kept their man, and Utrecht go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Utrecht can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marius Broholm was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
6 goals in 38 games at Luton Town — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
32 games, 13 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Utrecht now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Dani de Wit's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Vasilis Barkas is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Utrecht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Utrecht would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marius Broholm was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Marius Broholm is on it.
8 shut-outs in 35 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Kevin Gadellaa has been having a lot of them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikolas Panagiotou trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Utrecht have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Marius Broholm was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
13 goals in 30 games at De Graafschap — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Level with 88 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Utrecht had all but put away. Ajax will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Utrecht can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Utrecht and Groningen, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
15 goals in 31 games at Waasland-Beveren — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
At 22 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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Gjivai Zechiël at his very best
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Marius Broholm was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Apr 2027
9 new faces, and Utrecht 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.
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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
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.” Robin Stengs chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Jerry St. Juste 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 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.
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.
“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; Utrecht are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Utrecht 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.
30 appearances at MVV Maastricht and the goals have stopped going in. Utrecht lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vasilis Barkas signs something — a contract at Utrecht or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
2‑1 against Excelsior, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
A brace, and Dani de Wit takes the afternoon — 8.40
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dani de Wit provided it, and the 8.40 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Siebe Horemans. 2‑1 against Zwolle, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Utrecht 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Utrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marius Broholm 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Utrecht people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Utrecht can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikolas Panagiotou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Odysseus Velanas is a Utrecht player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Robbin Weijenberg has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Utrecht have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Utrecht lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Position 5, 32 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Victor Jensen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Utrecht game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Go Ahead Eagles runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
3‑0 against Grazer AK, on a night that will be replayed at this club for a generation. Continental reputations are made in single evenings and this was the evening.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped 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 Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Marius Broholm 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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Kevin Paredes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
Player ratingsDani de Wit was on a different afternoon to everybody else
“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 Utrecht hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Victor Jensen 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 month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Vasilis Barkas is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Utrecht will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artem Stepanov, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Victor Jensen 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 Utrecht 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mitchel Bakker signs something — a contract at Utrecht or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
4 goals in 9 games at Alcorcón — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Utrecht updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Zidane Iqbal’s exile