Marked for Dirk Proper
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Ringo Meerveld 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Nolhan Courtens is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Hristiyan Petrov has his answer from Heerenveen; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Oliver Braude gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Oliver Braude is on it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Maxence Rivera knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Heerenveen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Volendam next, and one man in the Heerenveen dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Looking ahead: the trip to Volendam
Position 10 for the hosts, a long journey for the away end, and a fixture that will look ordinary on paper right up until it is not.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The clock did what Utrecht would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match12 Sep 2026
AZ left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Heerenveen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luca Oyen 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 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jeroen Strootman after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Naoufal Bannis dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Heerenveen will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dirk Proper’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Heerenveen needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
Vitesse did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.9M for Naoufal Bannis, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Heerenveen, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
The fee is $910.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Vitesse drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
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 Heerenveen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dirk Proper. 3‑2 against Sparta Rotterdam, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.22 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match29 Aug 2026
Heerenveen hit back inside 1 minutes
Sparta Rotterdam held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Heerenveen answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Aug 2026
5‑0, and Ringo Meerveld took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Heerenveen tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Dirk Proper takes the afternoon — 8.38
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dirk Proper provided it, and the 8.38 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market17 Aug 2026
Dylan Vente has left for Volendam in a $5.7M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Heerenveen sell a favourite for $5.7M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Dylan Vente was one of the reasons people came, and $5.7M does not replace that by itself.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Nürnberg keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ringo Meerveld 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Utrecht have kept their man, and Heerenveen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Heerenveen have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dirk Proper and Heerenveen agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Jacob Trenskow and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Heerenveen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ringo Meerveld 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Almere City have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Amir Ismaïl. The answer from Heerenveen has not changed — yet.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Ponferradina: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Piet Scobel is in the works
Heerenveen have made the call to Nürnberg. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad3 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Heerenveen are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Ringo Meerveld knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Heerenveen, and both men came out saying it was fine.