Marked for Ramiz Zerrouki
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market15 Mar 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Twente is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad15 Mar 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 Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Sondre Ørjasæter 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“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; Twente are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The terraces15 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Sondre Ørjasæter 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 41. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Mar 2027
64 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lars Unnerstall commits to Twente for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Twente
Lars Unnerstall 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Bart van Rooij 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.
Match6 Mar 2027
Twente cannot find the net
3 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.
Match6 Mar 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
Nobody left the Twente dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
30 appearances at Groningen and the goals keep coming. Twente are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Daan Rots runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 37. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match6 Feb 2027
94 minutes played. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and NEC went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Bart van Rooij 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 terraces8 Feb 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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.
Match6 Feb 2027
Twente get the job done against NEC
A 1‑0 win over NEC, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A performance of 8.01 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ricky van Wolfswinkel, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 57. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad1 Feb 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 Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
The medical room confirms 35 days on the sidelines for Sebastian Lopez, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market1 Feb 2027
Feyenoord paid $280.0K and Twente took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Sondre Ørjasæter 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Stav Lemkin gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.53 on the card, and the Twente support went home talking about one name.
Match30 Jan 2027
Twente draw a blank against Roda
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Roda defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
The pass was always on for Daan Rots
Chances created: 4. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market25 Jan 2027
Twente say no — this time
The offer from Excelsior for Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Age has not caught Wout Weghorst yet — 7.82
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.82 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Twente
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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Bart van Rooij 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.
Match23 Jan 2027
It finished 2‑0, and it was Daan Rots’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Twente.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Daan Rots was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Twente will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Mathias Kjølø pops up at the right end — 7.78
7.78, 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.
Market7 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bart van Rooij 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 terraces7 Dec 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Sondre Ørjasæter 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
PSV made Twente work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.37 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 47. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match17 Oct 2026
Still nobody has beaten Twente
The unbeaten run reaches 12. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Twente
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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sondre Ørjasæter 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ricky van Wolfswinkel. 1‑0 against Zwolle, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Mathias Kjølø
“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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
10 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Daan Rots runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 63. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Max Bruns pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Bas Kuipers 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Ramiz Zerrouki
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ramiz Zerrouki has come out of that comparison in the side, and Twente have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Daan Rots runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Twente training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bart van Rooij 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
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.
Match29 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Taylor Booth’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Twente.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Mees Hilgers
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.82. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Arno Verschueren may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.