It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.63, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Simon Janssen 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Excelsior they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Irakli Yegoian 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 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 Excelsior know it.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
A mark of 7.81 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Excelsior have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Toni Frau will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Excelsior the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Remco Balk 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jerolldino Bergraaf. 1‑0 against Roda, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Janssen 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Excelsior can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jacob Beaumont-Clark has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Excelsior they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Simon Janssen has improved at 27, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
2‑5 to Utrecht, 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jerolldino Bergraaf did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 6.80 for the rest of it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Remco Balk 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Excelsior and Utrecht, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“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 Excelsior, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excelsior this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Roda paid $91.0K and Excelsior took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Simon Janssen 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.
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Yassine El Messaoudi leaves Excelsior the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Toni Frau will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Excelsior the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Toni Frau has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Remco Balk 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 Jul 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Janssen 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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Joel Janssen has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Remco Balk 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.
16 appearances and 3 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Janssen 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.
Seth Annink is 19, and Excelsior have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Excelsior have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Remco Balk 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Raphael van Geelkerken is 20, and Excelsior have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Remco Balk 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Simon Janssen 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
SquadNoah Naujoks asks for a word with the manager
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Szymon Włodarczyk 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.
Marked 8.60 — 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 performance of 8.34 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kasey Bos 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.
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Stijn van Gassel knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
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.
Remco Balk 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Excelsior training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gyan de Regt 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.