“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 The request is on a desk at Zwolle, and it is not being withdrawn.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Zwolle will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Younes Namli 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 name of Ryan Thomas has come up in conversations Zwolle were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Zwolle training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thijs Oosting 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Daan Maas has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Zwolle have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jan Faberski is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zwolle this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Thijs Oosting 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Tom de Graaff 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.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Younes Namli 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Zwolle training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Graves 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 words a physio says slowly. 24 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zwolle 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: Thijs Oosting. 2‑0 against Heracles, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Marked 8.04 — 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Lee Young-Jun 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Zwolle training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Graves 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zwolle this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Simon Graves 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Tom de Graaff
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Tom de Graaff has come out of that comparison in the side, and Zwolle have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.