Marked for Sem Valk
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
The knee: Said Bakari out for 107 days
107 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dordrecht lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Joshua Pynadath out for 44 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dordrecht will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A brace, and Nick Venema takes the afternoon — 8.98
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nick Venema provided it, and the 8.98 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Dordrecht may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Said Bakari and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match21 Nov 2026
A 3‑1 win over MVV Maastricht, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces23 Nov 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.00, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 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 The request is on a desk at Dordrecht, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 10 in, 12 out at Dordrecht
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market7 Sep 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Said Bakari 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The clock did what Heerenveen would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Dordrecht
Mica Pinto 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sem Valk makes the team of the month
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dordrecht can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with FC Midtjylland is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Said Bakari and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Dordrecht training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sem Valk 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Cody Blind after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Dordrecht are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
The chances came and went for Soufiane Hetli
9 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 6‑0 against Jong PSV, and it could have been more.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Noah Bischof takes the afternoon — 8.16
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Noah Bischof provided it, and the 8.16 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Dordrecht have gone to Feyenoord with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad24 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 Dordrecht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Dordrecht offered $280.0K; Vitesse said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Match22 Aug 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dordrecht and Jong PSV in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Said Bakari 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.
Transfer targets24 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Soufiane Hetli would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Soufiane Hetli is living that version at Dordrecht, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Lucas Woudenberg and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jurre van Aken and Dordrecht agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Dordrecht
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sem Valk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Georginio De Roon is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cody Simons has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Guus Bergwijn has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daley De Roon has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.