Marked for Jasper Cillessen
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NEC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market1 Feb 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at NEC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Window shuts: 4 in, 1 out at NEC
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market1 Feb 2027
NEC say no — this time
The offer from Utrecht for Isak Hansen-Aarøen 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.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
No thanks: Diego García rejects the move
NEC had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Malmo FF, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad1 Feb 2027
A falling-out at NEC
Virgil Misidjan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Midtjylland have kept their man, and NEC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match30 Jan 2027
NEC come up short against Zwolle
Zwolle left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout1 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Gonzalo Crettaz
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Jan 2027
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NEC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad25 Jan 2027
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NEC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market25 Jan 2027
Freek Entius has left for Excelsior in a $66.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
NEC asked and KV Mechelen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market25 Jan 2027
One of our own: Bas Depay joins the NEC first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Bas Depay is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market25 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daley Depay has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market25 Jan 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Patrick Dost has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Jan 2027
Jasper Cillessen damages knee ligaments — 43 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Marked 8.03 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match16 Jan 2027
NEC make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now NEC have 3 straight wins of it.
Boardroom18 Jan 2027
Noë Misumi has agreed to leave NEC for nothing
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Tempers go at NEC
Virgil Misidjan 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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
NEC asked and Zulte Waregem said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
At 21 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.
Match16 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑0, and it was Clement Bischoff’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to NEC.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Jan 2027
Jasper Cillessen damages knee ligaments — 50 days out
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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Age has not caught Bryan Linssen yet — 7.98
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Boardroom11 Jan 2027
Freek Entius has agreed to leave NEC for nothing
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at NEC
Bart Schenkeveld 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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 7.03, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Match9 Jan 2027
NEC get the job done against Heracles
A 3‑1 win over Heracles, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
NEC 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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Marked 8.36. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at NEC.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Argyris Darelas
“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.