It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NEC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; NEC are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Virgil Misidjan has his answer from NEC; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
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.
The dugout10 May 2027
Bram Nuytinck is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Everybody at NEC saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dylan Vente was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at NEC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Something was said to Wessel Kuhn and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NEC lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
1‑3 away to the standard of Willem II. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
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.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Dylan Vente 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Dylan Vente 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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luuk Dumfries 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Guus Strootman is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Georginio Clasie is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Utrecht moved on, Jasper Cillessen reports back to NEC, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NEC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NEC can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Jerry St. Juste and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Dylan Vente 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Viktoria Plzen have kept their man, and NEC go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NEC can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
He is 22 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.
“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 NEC, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jerry St. Juste wants continental football; whether NEC can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
A point taken on 94 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Nobody at NEC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jetro Willems 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NEC can pretend not to have heard.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at NEC hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Heerenveen spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka Kulenović 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.
“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 NEC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Jerry St. Juste 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.
“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 NEC know it.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Steven Stengs after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutThe team sheet said everything about Dennis Geiger
Jerry St. Juste 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.
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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Bram Nuytinck is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.