It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Go Ahead Eagles 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 Richonell Margaret was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson. 1‑0 against Heerenveen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Georginio De Vrij kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Dean James
77 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Go Ahead Eagles lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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. Ajax have kept their man, and Go Ahead Eagles go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
“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; Go Ahead Eagles are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout12 Jul 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Jerry St. Juste'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.
Go Ahead Eagles have made the call to Willem II. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Den Bosch; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer went to Utrecht this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: TOP Oss keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Go Ahead Eagles asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Gerrit Nauber 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Richonell Margaret 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.
37 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Jerry St. Juste'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.
133 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Go Ahead Eagles lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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 Richonell Margaret was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Go Ahead Eagles can tell you which week it ends in.
Half the programme played, position 16, 11 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether Go Ahead Eagles can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jerry St. Juste 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.
Marked 6.75 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Go Ahead Eagles know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 16 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Go Ahead Eagles this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alfons Sampsted and Go Ahead Eagles agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oscar Pettersson 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 dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Quincy Klaassen was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Go Ahead Eagles dressing room was either.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against PSV? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Go Ahead Eagles 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 Kenzo Goudmijn was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kenzo Goudmijn’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Go Ahead Eagles needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Joris Kramer has written the date down.
Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jerry St. Juste was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
1‑2 to AZ, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 1‑2 Quincy Klaassen left the room before anybody could ask which.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Feyenoord in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
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.
6 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.
Stefán Ingi Sigurðarson 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jerry St. Juste was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“I watch every Go Ahead Eagles game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at FC Eindhoven runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.